Eight Bit is Not Enough, Actually
by UnicornFoal
Summary: Human-AU. In a world where reality and video games have merged in a pixellated cataclysm, can egomaniac Strong Bad restore freedom to Free Country, save his friends and slay the dragon?
1. Previously In Our Story

Hi, peoples! This is the first fanfiction I've completed enough of to feel confident uploading. I know it's not all that original, so please be gentle.

This is adapted from the finale to TellTale's game series, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, which is called 8-Bit Is Enough. I thought it would be more interesting to see happening if the characters were all real humans beforehand. Also, anyone who couldn't buy the games themselves gets to experience it outside walkthroughs on YouTube. Heehee!

PAIRINGS: None

CHARACTERS: Everybody in the main group of twelve gets at least a cameo, but the main focus is on Strong Bad and Homestar. Also, several characters created for SBCG4AP and assorted Videlectrix games get appearances too.

GENERAL DISCLAIMER: The characters, story and most of the dialogue was not created by me. The narration, alternate universe setting and additional dialogue was, though. Still, no profit being made, on a site devoted to fanfiction, so... you can connect the dots on your own, right? This applies for the whole story too; I'm not gonna copy-paste this on every chapter.

Homestar's Speech Impediment: I tried to keep it as inconsistant as it is on the website... Yes, believe it or not, Homestar does drop the impediment occasionally. If I start to go overboard, let me know. It's very easy to get trigger-happy replacing the r's and er's with w's and ou's. Heh.

* * *

**CHAPTER ONE - Pweviously on Homestaw Wunnou...**

_"Uh oh, what now?"_

_"That drill musta damaged the stace spation more than I thought!"_

_"Looks like we're gonna have to jump!"_

_"Today is alright for tonight,_

_riding in a Corvette and feelin' alright_

_Alright for toniiiight-"_

Strong Bad jumped to his feet and flicked off the TV, spinning around with a flourish to face his adoring audience of cast and crew... or so he thought they'd be. In reality, some (like Coach Z) were still staring at the screen in shock, some (like Bubs and Marzipan) were glaring at Strong Bad and the rest were dotted around the basement looking a bit confused (like Strong Sad, Homestar and The Cheat). Yeah, usually the middle Brother Strong would let his creations run through to the absolute end, but everyone had been so excited about finally getting Dangeresque Three out of the way that he figured there was little point waiting today. Obviously he had been wrong.

Coach Z blinked from his seat on the couch, scratching the top of his purple cap, and asked "What happened to the part where Dangeresque swoops in, rescuing me from danger and carrying me off into the sunset?"

Strong Bad's mind immediately jumped to how, for timing reasons, he had been unable to fit Renaldo's rescue in the movie... and he coldly responded "Oh yeah, Renaldo dies now."

"WHAT?!" Coach Z cried, a horrified look on his face as he leaned down, resting his elbows on his knees. "Oh, but I only had two weeks 'till retirement!"

Marzipan took the chance to butt in, crossing her arms and legs as she bitterly said "Yeah, and you fast-forwarded through the eight minutes of educational content I provided!"

Strong Bad was surprised Marzipan was still holding onto that grudge - he had grabbed the remote to fast-forward right in the middle of the movie, which had turned out to be pretty long.

"And what happened to my nude scene?" Bubs added, stepping out from behind the couch to face Strong Bad.

Strong Bad shivered. He didn't want to go into what had happened to that one.

Perhaps somewhat calmer than Bubs and Marzipan, Strong Sad finally stood up from beside the TV and asked "Where is the artistic noir cinematic stylings you promised?"

As if on cue, everyone stood from their seats and began hounding Strong Bad for the various wrongs he'd committed in his editing, and the masked director found himself backed up against the couch, which he climbed on to avoid the quickly forming mob. "Now calm down, people!" he cried in a silencing attempt. "Every great film has to make some creative editing decisions in order to make me look better!" That only seemed to make the crowd angrier. 'Crap,' Strong Bad thought, 'this is starting to turn into an unruly mob! And not the good kind like I start at Strong Sad's poetry readings. For real this time... Looks like I'm gonna have to jump!' In one fluid movement, Strong Bad pushed against the arm of the couch with one leg and launched himself into the center of the mob.

As Strong Bad flew through the air, time seemed to slow for a moment, and he noticed too late his aim had been badly off. The hapless director had flung himself belly-first into the overhanging of the out-of-order Trogdor machine, and once he connected painfully with the cabinet, he fell, bounced off the keypad and tumbled to the floor, where he lay in silent pain.

The mob paused, then as one turned and fell over themselves fleeing the basement, disappearing up the stairs. Strong Sad, however, stopped at the door and looked back to his older brother. No matter how often Strong Bad pummelled him, he always had to check to make sure his older (though shorter) brother was okay, and today was no exception. As Strong Bad pushed himself to his knees, one hand clutching his side in pain, Strong Sad ran back to him and the madly sparking Trogdor machine and asked "Are you okay, Ben?"

It wasn't often the inhabitants of Free Country used their real names with each other, so doing so was often a signal they were being serious. "Yeah, I'm fine, Shawn," Ben (usually known as Strong Bad) grumbled in reply, pulling himself to his feet and looking in despair at the Trogdor machine behind him. "Oh, NOW look what you did, Dumpalumpa!" He stepped backwards to show his younger brother, glaring. "The Trogdor machine is ruined!"

Strong Sad crossed his arms and protested "What I did? This thing hasn't worked for months! Besides, YOU broke it! Everybody saw!"

"Look, this is no time to be pointing fat, doughy fingers," Strong Bad said haughtily, one hand still on his painful side. "This is the time for you to figure out how you're going to fix it."

At that point, the old arcade machine shook, and a loud roar erupted from the speakers. Both brothers took a step back from the machine, and Strong Bad nervously asked "What the crap was that?"

Strong Sad scratched his thick, black hair and ventured "It's sounds like the fan's broken." Putting his hands in the pockets of his black hoodie, he turned to his brother and continued "You'll have to get it serviced."

"Serviced?!" Strong Bad cried in annoyance, glaring at the machine and his brother alternately. "Where am I supposed to get fan service around here?"

Right on cue, a one-channel version of Trogdor's theme burst out of the machine's speakers, and, in time with the notes, the machine stood on two stick-like legs, a beefy arm burst out the back, a pair of wings sprouted from the top and the screen flashed on with a close-up image of Trogdor's angry face. With a loud roar, the Trogdor machine jumped forward. Strong Sad shouted in fear and ran up the stairs, and the arcade game wasted no time in following with another loud roar.

Strong Bad, having jumped back against the wall, watched them disappear up the stairs in amazement. "That may be... the coolest thing... that has ever happened!"

"Help!" Strong Sad shouted from upstairs, and Strong Bad only chuckled to himself in reply.

'Oh, I gotta see this!' he thought as he ran after his brother.

* * *

At the front door of the house, Strong Bad was almost disappointed to see his brother cowering under the window by the front door, with the Trogdor machine nowhere in sight. Strong Sad had pulled up the hood on his hoodie and lost a shoe at some point during the chase, and when he heard Strong Bad approaching he turned and stood, crying "You're finally here! Help me shore up our defences in case he comes back!"

Strong Bad looked around the kitchen in disappointment. "Hey, what happened to Trogdor? I expected to see him pummelling and/or burnitating you by now."

"I told him my plant Charlemagne was a defenceless peasant baby and threw it out the window!" Strong Sad gestured to the corner of the room where the dying fern had previously sat. "When he went after it, I locked the door behind him!" Now he gestured to the closed door, which did indeed seem to be latched shut. "That thing is out of control! You've got to get a new logic board and stop him!"

"Stop him? No, no," Strong Bad corrected his younger brother with a smile, "it's pronounced 'cheer him on'!" When Strong Sad only glared, he walked around closer to the window (although he couldn't see out past his brother) and continued "Did you see where Trogdor went?"

Strong Sad waved a hand behind him, getting out of his brother's way. "Take a look for yourself; He's just waiting for us to let our guard down!"

Sure enough, it was plainly visible from the window that the Trogdor machine come to life was standing just beyond the mailbox, looking around with curious roars but sticking to the general area. Of Charlemagne there was no sign.

"I ordered the replacement logic board months ago," Strong Sad continued "but the parts have been on back-order. They emailed me last week saying it had left the shop, but Bubs hasn't said anything about it arriving yet! If we'd had that new one-"

Strong Bad ignored his brother's rambling and asked "What's this 'logic board' you're babbling about?"

Strong Sad stopped nervously twiddling his thumbs and explained "When you broke the machine-"

"We never established who broke what!" Strong Bad interrupted.

"-you must have damaged the eight-bit containment field." Strong Sad barely noticed Strong Bad's interruption, continuing without pause. "You'll have to go check Bubs' for the replacement I ordered; It should have arrived by now. It's the only way to get Trogdor back in the game!"

Strong Bad put his gloved hands on his hips. "Why would I want him BACK in the game? Do you have any idea how long I've wanted my own dragon?"

The youngest Brother Strong shook his head in exasperation. "You don't understand! If Trogdor gets free, the videogame world and the real world will merge! Imagine hearing the repetitive, monophonic music of eight-bit games wherever you are, every second, for the rest of your life!"

Strong Bad was unconvinced, excitedly replying "Yeah, I know! That sounds awesome!"

The two brothers stood in silence for a second, Strong Bad excited and defying his younger brother, and Strong Sad frowning, thinking of a way to convince Strong Bad to help him. With a rare evil grin, Strong Sad crossed his arms and sang "Doot doot doot doot doot, doot doooot. Doot doot doot doot doot, doot doooot. Doot doot doot doot doot, doot doooot."

Strong Sad paused to gauge his brother's reaction. Strong Bad wasn't grinning anymore, but he still wasn't speaking either, so Strong Sad began his monophonic tune again.

"Doot doot doot do-"

"Alright, I'll fix the machine!" Strong Bad cried, grabbing his masked head with his hands in annoyance. "Why do I have to go over to Bubs' anyway? Can't you do it?"

"Ben, I have to watch the machine and man our defences!"

"And _Shawn_," Strong Bad retaliated in irritation, "I still have to go out there!" What Strong Bad failed to mention was that he was objecting mainly to the fact that he had to be the one to approach the dragon, rather than the action of approaching the dragon itself. Not to say he wasn't slightly nervous about approaching that large beefy arm, because he was.

"Then call Coach Zobel and see if he'll get Max to help!" Shawn insisted, nervously scratching the back of his leg with his socked foot.

"We could just wait for The Cheat to get back. He has a cell phone we can use." Strong Bad replied, raising his eyebrows.

"Don't you still have Michael's phone? That you stole? A few months ago? In your room?"

Strong Bad clicked his fingers (quite an achievement even with fingerless gloves) and cried "That's right! Man, it's hard to keep up with all the stuff I steal. I should start keepin' a spreadsheet... or a bedsheet... Fredsheet?"

Shawn shook his head as his brother trailed off, and set the conversation back on track by asking "Will you be able to find it easier than the address book? If it takes too long, we can always use the phone on the wall..."

"No way, man," Strong Bad replied. "You have to actually punch in the full number on that thing. Besides, I have no problem with following Trogdor myself. Wait here, Junior, I've got a reanimated arcade machine to take care of!"

Strong Bad confidently strode to the front door, but Shawn stopped him in his tracks by grabbing his arm. "Just you? You'd have to be some type of idiot to take on Trogdor alone!"

"What?" cried Strong Bad, wringing his arm away from his brother. "You said all I have to do is replace some kind of logic board and everything'd be fine!" He adopted a thoughtful pose as he thought out loud "I just need to remember where I put the key to open the Trogdor machine, then grab the logic board and pop it in!" Haughtily, he flicked Shawn's nose and finished "How hard can that be?"

"Plenty," Shawn deadpanned. "But since you never listen to me and you're probably gonna do it anyway, take this case key." He pulled a small, round key out of his pocket and held it out. "It's the only way to open the cabinet."

Strong Bad had taken the key already by the time he twigged what his younger brother had said. With a glare, he confronted Shawn with "Wait, you've had MY key that opens the Trogdor cabinet this whole time?!"

Shawn nodded, quickly explaining "Well, yes, but I was only holding onto it for you so that you wouldn't lose it..." He paused briefly, before slyly smiling and continuing "Like you did with your baby bwankey and-"

"Shut up! Shut up nine times!" Strong Bad interrupted.

"Oh, by the way," Shawn said, "You might want to put a shirt on. You landed on Trogdor pretty hard." He gestured to Strong Bad's side, and only now did the older brother notice that there was a large colourful bruise blossoming there.

"Great," he mumbled. "I'll grab a shirt while I find Homestar's phone." Strong Bad nursed his side and walked around to the back of the house.

* * *

Strong Bad's room was, in it's natural state, a mess. It was only cleaned on rare occasions when Strong Bad was out of the house and Strong Sad dared to enter it with a duster and garbage bag, and even then Strong Bad never noticed the difference when he came back.

The bed had, long ago, been stripped of sheets and pillows, and never made again. Not that it mattered too much; the blue mattress was hidden under a huge pile of dirty shirts, pants, underwear and other miscellanious items Strong Bad had thrown on there in the past. Among the mess were two Limozeen CDs, Space Captainface's cape, a lone boxing glove and Homestar's cell phone. Strong Bad was quick to dig out the phone, amusedly listening to it and noticing that the Ukranian Weather Update Line, which he had called before stuffing the phone in the pile, was still on the other end.

"Is still very cold!"

Strong Bad only hung up and muttered "I hope Homestar's got some crazy roll-over minutes!" With phone in hand, he grabbed a random shirt from the pile (a grass-green polo with a pocket and a tiny floppy disk logo) to put on, which he was quick to slip the tiny case key into.

When he had last been in the room, playing on his FunMachine, he had decided to dress in his Dangeresque costume for the approaching premiere, which had involved the usual black pants, red boots, red fingerless gloves and mask. The sunglasses he had left by accident in the computer room upstairs, so he had left them off. Now that the rather disastrous airing of his movie had passed, there was little need to wear the mask and gloves any longer. The mask was peeled off (finally freeing his flattened black hair), but the gloves he decided to keep for now. Maybe the change of costume would help the other inhabitants of Free Country forget that they all currently hated him?

Nah.

While exiting the room, Strong Bad hit the speed-dial for Bubs' Concession Stand and held the bulky phone up to his ear... only to get a dial-tone in response. "What?" he muttered in confusion, looking at the screen before crying out loud "No signal?! You'd think a cell phone this giant'd have a better antenna!"

Shawn looked around from the window by the front door. "Problems with Michael's phone?"

"Even he calls himself Homestar, and of course there's problems!" Strong Bad replied in irritation as he walked through the living room. "I forgot this thing doesn't work indoors, because Homestar never bothers getting a new one that does!" He slumped onto the kitchen bench and grabbed the nearest cereal box, taking a handful of food out to munch on.

Shawn shrugged at the nickname correction. They had been using nicknames in preference to their own almost as long as he could remember, so he could understand why his brother loved them so much. "I suppose we could always use the house phone. I think I remember where we left the address book."

Strong Bad waved a hand in nonchalance. "No way am I doing it, man. You can if you want."

At that point in the conversation, they were interrupted by the sound of a key unlocking the front door. Briefly panicked, Strong Bad dropped his cereal and Strong Sad jumped into the stairway, and they both watched as the front door slowly opened to reveal...

"The Cheat!" Strong Bad reprimanded. "Don't do that!"

Ignoring his caretaker, the fourteen-year-old in the doorway scratched his head underneath his large yellow hat and said "Um, were you guys aware the Trogdor machine was alive in the front yard?"

"What do you mean 'was'?" Shawn asked. "It was still there last time I looked."

The Cheat shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets as he wandered inside. "I think I scared it off when I approached it. It ran off towards Bubs'."

The two Strong Brothers glanced at each other in a mixture of shock and confusion, before Strong Bad jumped towards the door crying "Hey, Trogdor! Come back here!" and disappeared outside.

* * *

It was a fifteen-minute sprint northwest to get to Bubs' Concession Stand from the House of Strong. Strong Bad didn't sprint all the way (the bruise on his side was still very painful), so it was closer to half an hour later before he got there. It was hard to get lost too - Before the Strongs had moved to Free Country, a white picket fence had been installed that ran from the side of their house all the way to Bubs' Stand. Over the years, as the children of the town climbed over it as a shortcut, it started to collapse, so only fragments were still standing today, the two largest being the two ends, now standing on their own.

The area around the Stand was known as the center of town. The old Gremlin car that had once been Bubs' and was now Strong Bad's still sat here where it had been left, and Strong Badia was visible between the two in the distance. On the other side of the Stand, the circle was completed by the Blubb-O's Drive-Thru Whale and one of the two lone brick walls in Free Country (the other was in front of Homestar's house). In the distance behind them was the Stick, just far away enough to render the 'circle' of the center of town more of a square, or even a square-tangle.

The Trogdor machine was stomping around in the general area between the Gremlin and Strong Badia, again seeming to be content looking at the one place. Strong Bad cautiously approached it from behind, slipped the case key out of his shirt pocket (may as well get that door open while he had the chance) and leapt forward to grab the cabinet.

Just as Strong Bad was about to reach the door, the machine swung around and punched his head with its beefy arm. "Oof!" he cried as he fell backwards, being rewarded for his efforts by the machine now running off to circle behind the Gremlin.

'Shawn was right, there's no way I'm getting near that thing on my own...' Strong Bad thought, rubbing his head and hoping that this injury would not bruise. 'I need someone to distract it without making it run away. Maybe Graw Mad?'

A voice from Strong Bad's left interrupted his thoughts. "Hey Strong Bad! Whatcha doin'?"

'Or maybe Homestar!' With another triumphiunt click of his fingers, Strong Bad ran over to Strong Badia, where captain-of-the-team Homestar Runner was currently sitting in the dirt with a comb in one hand. Just as he was about to ask why Homestar was sitting in the dirt with a comb in one hand, Homestar stood up and said "Uh-oh! Don't look now, but look at that thing over thewe!"

Strong Bad glanced back at the Trogdor machine, which was still jumping up and down by the Gremlin. "Calm down, Homestar; it's just a rampaging Trogdor machine."

"Never mind that!" Homestar insisted, still looking at the arcade game. "I'm talkin' 'bout that walk-'em-up videro game over thewe!" Strong Bad restrained himself from rolling his eyes. "Ooh, I wanna play it so bad!"

'Oh,' Strong Bad thought, 'getting Homestar to be a distraction will be easier than I thought!' Taking the chance to put the case key back in his shirt pocket, he asked "So... why don't you go over and play it?"

"Because I lost my lucky video game quawtou!" the athlete sighed, wiping his dry upper lip with one hand.

Strong Bad blinked for a moment and shook his head. 'And people wonder why he's so odd on the website?' He looked down at the combed dirt and noticed that a lot of it was now stuck to Homestar's white running shoes and matching white pants. He too had been wearing a variant on his Dangeresque costume for the premiere, but had presumably not even gone home since to change. His distinctive red star shirt and cap had been lucky to escape the dirt, Strong Bad thought, and Strong Bad himself was lucky Homestar seemed to have forgotten being a part of the angry mob after the premiere earlier.

"Today's your lucky day, Homestar!" Strong Bad enthused, holding his arms out. "You get to help me fix the Trogdor machine!"

Homestar was already excited, dropping his comb and clapping. "I DO?! What do I do? What do I do?"

"Just stand in front and try to play it while I open up the back."

"Oh, I'm all ovew it!" Homestar saluted Strong Bad as he spoke. "I'm great at standing in fwont of things!"

"Yep, you're a regular standing Stan! Now let's go!" Strong Bad spun around to march towards the machine, but was stopped when Homestar again spoke.

"Can't, man. I gotta stay here in case my lucky quawtou comes back!" Homestar looked around worriedly. "What if he shows up and I'm gone? He'll be so scawed and lonely. He'll just be sitting thewe holding his sno-cone and crying..." At this point Homestar was almost in tears, sniffing and wiping his face with the back of his hand. "_While everybody looks at him!_"

Strong Bad groaned. It was just like Homestar to form this kind of attachment to a dang _coin_. Even so, if he wanted help, he'd have to ask about it. "What's all this yibber-yabber about a lucky quarter?"

Homestar immediately cheered up and explained "Lucky George has gotten me through a lot of tough jams: Street Mashou, Street Mashou 2, Street Mashou 2: Slightly Diffewent Costumes Edition..." Homestar counted the games off on one hand, but when he reached the end of the list of games that sprung quickly to mind, he gave up and finished "That quawtou and I are arcade legends in five countries!"

Strong Bad highly doubted that last part. "Yeah yeah, you're a pinball wizard. But why are you trespassing in Strong Badia?"

"Because it's hewe!" the athlete insisted. "I can't find heads or tails of it, but something deep down in my gut tells me Lucky Geowge is close by!" He bent down to pick up his comb, and seemed about to start literally combing through the dirt again when Strong Bad decided it was time to put Homestar out of his misery.

"Alright alright, I'll help you find your quarter," Strong Bad admitted, feeling a small sense of deja-vu.

Homestar grinned widely. "Thanks Strong Bad! You're the eleventh best fwiend a guy could have!"

Strong Bad refrained from commenting on Homestar's last outburst. "Where'd you have it last?"

"Well, thewe was the pie-eating contest this morning," Homestar began, again counting off on his fingers, "and then that hour I spent saying 'Hey Marzipan, guess what?' to Marzipan, and then we all went to your house to watch Dangewesque, and then Coach Z bet me a moist Benjamin I couldn't catch the quawtou in my mouth, and then I came hewe and must have dropped it." He stopped and looked around at the dirt before hopefully looking back to Strong Bad. "But if anybody can dig it up, you can! I heaw you're the best diggew in Caiwo!"

Strong Bad grinned at Homestar's last sentence. 'Best digger in Cairo' had been the last 'rumour' he started when he took out his metal detector, and he had told it to Homestar himself. But enough preening - he still had a quarter to find. "It's gotta be around here somewhere, Homestar."

Homestar nodded in agreement. "It's always in the thiwd-to-last place I look!"

Strong Bad blinked in puzzlement. "Uh, what?"

"I always like to look a few extra times to make suwe I've found it. But if anyone can dig it up, you can!" Homestar smiled and leant back down in the dirt, running his comb over the same spot multiple times.

Strong Bad looked around. At the pace Homestar was going, he'd never find it. But, of course, he didn't have a metal detector back home he could use! "Hey, Homestar," he called.

Homestar did not react.

"Homestar?" Strong Bad tried again.

Still no reaction.

"Michael!" Strong Bad almost shouted in frustration.

Homestar blinked and looked up. "Yeah?"

"I need you to keep an eye on the Trogdor machine over there, okay? I've gotta run home and grab my metal detector."

The athlete nodded and replied "Suwe, Ben!" and instantly went back to cheerfully combing through the dirt.

Strong Bad groaned again. He didn't want to leave the Trogdor machine alone, and he especially didn't want to leave Homestar combing through the precious ground of Strong Badia, but he had little choice. He still had to get that logic board on top of all this as well... 'Oh, I almost forgot!' Strong Bad thought, facepalming, and he rushed over to the local Concession Stand.


	2. Sing the Radiation Blues

One small note I forgot to mention last time: I am Australian. My spelling is Australian. For the differences between American and Australian that I know, I tried to stick to the American in the character's speech, but in the narration I see no reason to not type normally. So don't complain about the spelling, if you're the type to do so. I know I can be!

EDIT: Sorry, just to note: The Videlectrix letter is DELIBRATELY mispelled. Just so there's no more misunderstandings!

* * *

**CHAPTER TWO - Radiation Blues**

It had been a couple of days since Strong Bad had last been out of the house, busy as he had been editing together his movie. When he had last seen the Stand, it had cardboard tubes taped across the front and the sign still said 'BRAINBLOW CITY PRISON'. Bubs had now changed the sign back and removed the fake bars, but had instead erected a set of scaffolding on the front and along one side. Since the premiere half-an-hour ago, he had removed his orange jumper and was seated half-way up the scaffolding in a string vest and hardhat, currently hammering something on the sign. Marzipan was standing nearby, looking over a set of papers with the end of a pencil in her mouth. She was also in a hardhat, and still in the black dress she had adjusted for the Dangeresque character Sultry Buttons that she had worn to the premiere.

"Bubs!" Strong Bad called as he approached.

Marzipan looked up with a glare and returned to her papers. Strong Bad only scoffed and figured she was still angry about him fastforwarding through her environmental speech.

Bubs put down the hammer and leaned over the side of the scaffolding. "Strong Bad!" he called back. Luckily for Strong Bad, Bubs was never one to hold a grudge against anyone who wasn't Coach Z... usually. "Tell that machine to stop all that yappin'! We're trying to get some work done here!" He glared and pointed over at the Trogdor machine, apparently uncaring of the fact that the arcade machine was suddenly alive. Then again, Bubs had a remarkable ability to disregard the paranormal or unusual.

"Why aren't you behind the stand?" Strong Bad asked, cursing his luck. "I got somethin' I gotta pick up today!"

"We're closed for remodelling!" the shopkeeper replied with a frown. "I gotta fix all the damage YOU did while you were making your movie!"

Strong Bad flinched and looked down at Marzipan, who was still looking over her papers. "So why is Marzipong here?" he asked with a grin. "Protesting the construction?"

Marzipan flung her arms down to her sides with a loud rustle of her papers and scowled at Strong Bad. "It's _Melissa_. And that shows how much YOU know, Ben. I'm making sure he does everything to code." She stuck her nose in the air and crossed her arms. "I DO have an architectural engineering degree, you know."

Strong Bad pulled a face. Marzipan, or as she preferred to be known, Melissa, was always the most opposed to the nicknames, and would only use them if she felt it was necessary. Ignoring the town's only girl, he looked back up to Bubs and asked "Strong Sad said he ordered a logic board months ago and wanted me to pick it up. You have it yet?"

Bubs scratched his chin and thought for a moment, before asking "Was it from Videlectrix? I got a parcel from them just the other day."

"Yeah, that's it!" Strong Bad replied, nodding.

"Oh, that's in the back," Bubs explained, climbing down the side of the scaffolding. "I'll get it for ya."

"Thanks, man!"

"No problem!" Bubs reached the ground and walked around to the back of his shop. "You'll have to wait out here though. We aren't allowed inside without a hat," he explained, rapping on his hardhat with his fist.

"Right, right," Strong Bad muttered while he watched Bubs disappear into his store and come back out with a small box, which was adorned with a large, pixelated blue V.

"Here 'tis!" the shopkeeper exclaimed as he handed it over. "Have fun!" He walked back over to the scaffolding, but as he reached it, a thought occured to Strong Bad that could save him time.

"Hey Bubs! Would you be able to come help me out with something?"

"Sorry, Strong Bad. I don't want to waste anymore time than I have to getting my Concession Stand open again. Maybe another time," Bubs explained as he climbed back up to his former perch.

"Awww," Strong Bad groaned. "That means I gotta go get my metal detector to help Homestar find some stupid coin so HE'LL help me!"

Melissa smiled in triumph from her spot in the corner, flicking her loose hair over her shoulder. "Oh dear, Ben. How terrible for you that you have to ask someone else for help, especially Michael," she said sarcastically, her face practically screaming 'serves you right'.

Strong Bad wrinkled his nose in disgust and considered sticking his tongue out, but thought better of it and just walked off. Like Bubs, he didn't want to waste time.

* * *

On the way home, Strong Bad opened up the small parcel to find what he could only presume was the logic board all wrapped up in bubble-wrap. It was quite large, so Strong Bad would have to carry it in his hands, which would be quite a task when he had to grab his metal detector as well.

Back at the House of Strong, Strong Bad was surprised to notice that Strong Sad was no longer lurking in the kitchen, and The Cheat wasn't hanging around either. He left the logic board on the kitchen counter and wandered around to his room, which he was again surprised to see... Or rather, not see. The door to his room was only ever closed by Strong Bad when he was inside, and as Strong Bad hadn't closed it when he left before, there was only one person who would be in there now.

"The Cheat!" called Strong Bad as he pushed the door open.

The fourteen-year-old jumped to his feet and spun to face the door, clutching one of Strong Bad's Fun Machine games in his hands. "Oh, Strong Bad!" he replied in surprise. "I thought you weren't coming back for a while!" The pile of games he had been looking through while seated fell apart into a messy pile similar to the one on the bed behind him.

Strong Bad took one look at the teen in his overlarge spotted hat and favourite yellow jumper and knew what he had been doing. Crossing his arms, he proceeded to tell him off like an errant child. "The Cheat, you know you gotta ask permission before you can play with or be around the Fun Machine."

The Cheat's face fell and he pleaded "Aw, but-"

"Especially when it's to put crap like this in there!" Strong Bad grabbed the red cartridge out of The Cheat's hands and looked at the title. "Gel-Arshie's Pro Fruitboarder?" He held the game out of The Cheat's reach and explained "This is the promo shovelware I got for sending in the proofs of purchase from all that Jela-Ton I won in the Race to the End of the Race four months ago!"

The Cheat paused a moment in thought and nodded. "Oh, yeah, I remember that! It's just we've never played it, so-"

"_I've_ played it," Strong Bad corrected, adding "And these things are never any good, anyway! Say it with me, The Cheat."

With a sigh, The Cheat joined Strong Bad in a monotone of "Licensed videogames are never good." Strong Bad held the game out for the teen, saying "Very good, kid."

Taking his game back, The Cheat sat back down and started putting the games back in their piles on the shelf under the TV. "You're so unfair," he mumbled to himself.

"Yeah yeah, I know," Strong Bad chuckled, reaching over and taking his Tarunchula Black Metal Detector from where it was leaning against the wall. He looked at the shovel attachment leaning next to it (the shovel itself had been stolen from the Poopsmith months ago, and painted to match the detector) and decided it was probably an unneeded addition to what he would already be carrying. Homestar only dropped the coin today, so there was no chance of it getting itself buried since then.

For the second time that day, Strong Bad suddenly remembered why he was going to all this trouble in the first place, and asked his young partner-in-crime "Hey The Cheat, you wanna help me out today?"

The Cheat looked up. "I hope you're not asking me to do anything with that Trogdor machine. I'm not going near that thing."

Strong Bad blinked in surprise. "Why not? It ran away from you, didn't it?"

The teen shrugged. "Yeah, but only after it took a few swings at me. I'm not risking getting hit by that beefy arm. Sorry, S.B."

Strong Bad huffed to himself. So Homestar was the only one bored enough _and_ stupid enough to help him. Luckily he had everything he needed now, so everyone else's refusal to help was trivial.

Flinging the metal detector to rest over his shoulder, Strong Bad strode out the front door, nabbing the logic board on his way past. Maybe now he could get that machine fixed and finish this little escapade off early!

* * *

Back at the town centre, the Trogdor machine had again moved, and was now running around in the middle of the circle, still roaring and generally causing a ruckus. Homestar was leaning against the fence in Strong Badia, having grown bored with his combing but staying loyal to his promise to watch the arcade machine in Strong Bad's absence. "Hey, Strong Bad!" he called as his fellow twenty-five-year-old approached.

Strong Bad ignored Homestar and went straight to work, slipping the detector off his shoulder, flipping it on and waving it around over the ground. At first, it seemed to find nothing, still emitting the lone bass beat of an electric guitar, but when he waved it near Homestar's blue-soled shoes, the beat suddenly increased, signalling a metallic object nearby.

"Whoa! Did you find my quawtou?" Homestar asked, leaning down and looking at the ground closely. "Lucky Geowge, here boy!" He stood back up and cried in excitement "Ooh, it's so close I can TASTE it! I'll just step over hewe so you can get to digging it up!" He stepped over to one side, and instantly the guitar beat on the detector fell back down to one.

"Hey!" Strong Bad cried in confusion.

Homestar stepped back to his original place by the detector and its reactions immediately sped up again. Strong Bad frowned as he realised what had happened to the lost quarter, but Homestar had his own explanation that he didn't fail to provide: "Thewe it is again! It must be on the move!"

Strong Bad hefted the detector up to point it at Homestar's torso and the rocking tune that signalled a find rang out for the brief moment he held it up. "Homestar," he ventured, "did you swallow your lucky quarter?"

The athlete frowned and crossed his arms, protesting "Of couwse not! And it certainly didn't taste anything like buttouscotch!"

Strong Bad sighed. Hoping trying it again would get through to Homestar, he held up the detector again and let the 'metal found' riff ring out for longer.

Homestar began to writhe and giggle as if someone was tickling him, and for a moment, Strong Bad could have sworn he saw a glow, but before he could react to it, Homestar had pulled the detector out of his hands and proclaimed "You must be using it wrong. Let me twy!" He ran out of Strong Badia, waving the detector around too fast for it to find anything new, and headed straight for the Trogdor machine. "Sounds like Lucky Geowge is on the move! I'll find him!"

Strong Bad slapped his forehead. "Idiot," he muttered, hoping the dragon-possessed-machinery would punch the daylights out of Homestar instead of the metal detector.

Although the Trogdor machine took several swipes at the star athlete, Homestar managed to duck out of the way every time. "Whoa, did you heaw that?" he called, waving the detector around some more. "It MUST be awound hewe!" After several more torturous seconds of unwittingly dodging the machine, Homestar stood up straight, turned to face Strong Bad and flung the detector over his shoulder, sending it crashing to the ground. "Your so-called 'metal detectou' must be bwoken, I don't see it anywh-"

Several seconds too late to save the detector, Trogdor finally landed a hit, and slammed the back of Homestar's head with his fist. The athlete was flung forward, and Strong Bad noticed a small, silver coin fly out of his mouth and land in the grass nearby.

Homestar stood back up without comment and retreated to Strong Badia. As he passed Strong Bad, the angry director spun in disgust and shook a fist for several seconds before calming down enough to state in a monotone "You swallowed it."

The athlete blinked for a moment before retaliating bitterly "Step off! Don't even joke about that!" He clutched his hands to his chest and dramatically explained "That lucky quawtou keeps me a champion! Fwom video games, to twack and field, to gambling on whether or not I can catch said lucky quawtou in my mouth-"

"I'm telling you Homestar, you swallowed it!" Strong Bad growled.

"Get sewious for weal, Strong Bad," Homestar replied, smiling as if hearing a joke. "If only we had some kind of detectou that detects metal things..." He scratched his chin in thought, glancing over at the broken metal detector lying beside the Trogdor machine. "That works, I mean." He looked happily up at the clouds in the sky and added "I'm getting hungwy again just thinking about it!"

Death threats running through his mind, Strong Bad turned back to the rampaging arcade game and stormed away from Homestar, groaning. First the idiot breaks his prized Taranchula Black Metal Detector and now he, the mighty Strong Bad, had to pick up a gross quarter covered in Homestar's innard-slime and smelling of upchuck? He shivered in disgust. This was at least as bad as the time Bubs shot the Compy. Even worse, the smashed remains of the detector were too close to the Trogdor machine for him to retrieve! Ergh, there was no way this would ever be redeemed in his mind.

Reluctantly, Strong Bad fished around in his pockets (no way was he touching that coin with his bare hands!) and found a tissue in his pants pocket that was still usable. Shoving the logic board under an arm, he carefully wrapped the tissue around his right hand and gingerly picked up the silver coin. "Ewww," he whined, rushing back to Homestar with several choice words he wanted to throw the athlete's way. For his own sanity, he decided it was better to just get straight to the point.

"Yo mushbrain, check out what your slimy innards horked up," Strong Bad called, holding up the quarter and wrinkling his nose.

"Lucky Geowge!" Homestar cried in joy, grabbing the slimy quarter from the tissue without pause. Smiling at Strong Bad, he gave a thumbs up and said "All wight S.B., lemme at that Trogga machine!"

Without another word, Homestar marched up to the arcade game and grabbed the controls. Despite Trogdor's beefy arm repeatedly smacking him in the head (with accompanying 'ow's from Homestar), Free Country's star athlete seemed game to stay put, not even flinching at the frequent pain being applied to his head. "Ow! Ow! Hey, that huwts! Ow!"

"Ouch," Strong Bad laughed. 'It's a good thing Homestar's head is so soft, spongy and... well... empty,' he thought.

Although he was strongly tempted to stay and watch for a minute, Strong Bad got the case key out of his shirt pocket and circled the Trogdor machine to approach it from the side. It took no notice of him, still beating the snot out of Homestar, so he quickly moved the remains of his metal detector to the side, unlocked the cabinet door and leaned in to find the burnt out logic board he needed to replace. Annoyingly, it was up against the opposite wall, requiring him to lean right in to pull it out. 'Man, smells like burning, wet The Cheat all down in here,' he thought.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the House of Strong, Strong Sad wandered downstairs into the kitchen to find The Cheat filling waterballoons in the sink. The teen stopped for a moment and looked up, but the youngest Brother Strong only raised his eyebrows and said "I'm not gonna ask." Grinning, The Cheat returned to his task.

While passing the messy tabletop, Strong Sad stopped briefly. Sat on the edge was a small, ripped open cardboard box and a sheet of (mostly popped) bubble-wrap. "Did we get a parcel?" he asked.

The Cheat looked around. "I think Strong Bad had that. Some kind of circuit board or somethin'."

"Oh, so Bubs _did_ have the logic board!" Strong Sad said with a smile. "I guess he must've gone to install it."

"Yeah, he said he needed help with something," The Cheat explained. "Was gonna dupe Homestar into it, I think."

Strong Sad nodded and lifted the bubblewrap, revealing underneath a handwritten letter. "What's this?" he thought aloud, lifting it into the light to read. " 'Valued _costumer_'..." Strong Sad paused at the odd spelling mistake before continuing, " 'our legal deportment would like to remind you nut to install the Videlectrix 8-bit Containment Field logic bored near anything that's been exposed two radiation, as it could potentionally cuase the end of existance as we now it. Thanks! Videlectrix.' " He put the letter down in thought as The Cheat turned from the sink to face him. "Huh. I guess it's good that there's not much radioactivity in Free Country, huh?"

The Cheat took off his overlarge hat and fiddled with it, biting his lower lip.

"The Cheat?" Strong Sad asked. "Tommy, what is it?"

"It's just," the teen admitted, "do metal detectors count as radioactive?"

There was a long pause as the meaning of the question sank in.

Clutching the letter in one hand, Strong Sad headed for the door, saying "We'd better go warn 'im."

"Um, you go ahead," The Cheat said, edging towards the back of the house. "I'll go... check... that the detector is really gone from his room... okay?"

Strong Sad narrowed his eyes in disbelief but let it slide. "Alright, I'll go warn him on my own," he said, "but you stay in the house while I'm gone!"

"Yes, _Mom_," The Cheat muttered with a scowl, but Strong Sad was already out the door.


	3. ACT 1: HomeSpam Invasion

And so we enter into the video-game world... and if anyone spots the references in the 'Act' titles, they get a monkey-shaped internetz! Oh, and love from a fellow fan. Adventure games should never be afraid to reference each other; there are less of them all the time, after all.

* * *

**CHAPTER THREE - Invasion of the HomeSpam**

**Act One: The Two Trials**

"Hey, Stwong Bad," Homestar said dizzily, his stomach beginning to glow, "could you finish my game for me? I'm feeling a little woozy..."

"Almost... got it..." Strong Bad replied, into the machine almost up to his waist, as he struggled with the final connection of the new board.

With the click of the final set of wires, there was a massive, white explosion in the centre of Free Country. Marzipan and Bubs by the Concession Stand looked up in shock as the light blinded them. Strong Sad stopped his sprint halfway to the arcade machine as the explosion flung him elsewhere. The Poopsmith, on his rounds as postman, was knocked over and his hat sent flying. Strong Mad and Coach Z had their training session at the Track cut short when several objects materialised around them. The King of Town looked out his castle window in amazement, a sandwich sticking out of his mouth, as his castle shook violently. The Cheat squealed in surprise as he was interrupted in the middle of his secret operations. Homestar, right next to the blast, was caught up and carried away. Strong Bad himself, at the centre of the blast, was simply thrown backwards onto his rear.

When the light faded, Strong Bad pulled himself to a sitting position and looked up. The Trogdor machine seemed... bigger than it usually did, but it was now lifeless and thus safe. "Well, that was easy and extremely painful," he muttered, standing with way more difficulty than normal. 'I better go trick somebody into carrying this machine back to the basement for me,' he thought, feeling a bit light-headed... and way shorter than usual. What was going on? And where had his metal detector gone?

Strong Bad heard a roar to his left, and turned to see that the world around him had changed, and not only that, but a fully-fledged, real-life Trogdor was bouncing around burning Strong Badia to the ground.

"Trogdor?" he called in disbelief, racing to his beloved country. "NOOO! Bad Trogdor! Heel!" Trogdor only roared again and raced off behind the row of cartoonishly round bushes that had sprung up around the circle of the town centre, which Strong Bad now noticed had been rearranged into a near perfect ring around the arcade machine.

Turning back to Strong Badia, Strong Bad noticed that, although it was burnt, it was burning in a decidedly odd way. Everything, from the flag to the tire to the stop sign, seemed to have been cut in half, given a black ring around the cut, and then had CG fire placed on top. It was like... one of The Cheat's modern 3D video-games...

Shaking his head, Strong Bad fell to his knees and looked at the burning fence. "My poor kingdom!" he cried in anguish. "You were never supposed to burninate MY countryside!"

It was only at the moment Strong Bad raised his hands to his face he began to suspect there was more wrong with the world that just Free Country itself. Instead of normal, five-fingered hands with thin, red fingerless gloves, he saw at the ends of his arms large red boxing gloves, round and shiny as apples, and with window reflections in them despite being nowhere near a building. They had white cuffs over his wrists, and Strong Bad's gaze travelled down to his body, noticing now that, not only was his green polo mysteriously gone, but his body was following no laws of reality at all, appearing to just be a round ball that was as shiny as his boxing-glove hands. The large bruise on his side was gone, along with nipples and any kind of muscles Strong Bad always insisted he had. "What the crap?" he muttered, trying to move his fingers and finding they seemed to be glued together in this new form of his. How was he supposed to flip people the bird now? And point? _And type?_ Was he supposed to use his thumb now for everything? And... he dared not wonder... what had happened to his face?

"Uh, hey Stwong Bad. Is this a bad time?"

"I wasn't crying!" Strong Bad quickly insisted, looking up to see... well, he wasn't sure what he was seeing. Floating in mid-air before his face was a strange pop-up window that usually belonged on a computer screen, bordered with a simple blue box, and inside, standing in front of a warm orange fadey backdrop, was a strange creature that resembled one of The Cheat's animations. It had paper-white skin, a large underbite, strange comma-shaped eyes, and was wearing the favourite shirt and hat of someone he knew very well. "Wait, Homestar? Where are you? And what happened to your arms?" he asked in confusion.

"I'm in your intewface," the no-armed whitey explained. "Pwetty cool, huh?"

Strong Bad was only more annoyed that Homestar's speech impediment had stuck around when nothing else had. "Well, get out!" he cried, waving a boxing glove at the pop-up. "I've got enough to worry about without you gettin' all up in my _HUD_ like some kinda pop-up spam!"

Homestar looked around and his eyes suddenly gained worried eyebrows. "Yeah, that's a pwoblem." He blinked and his eyes returned to normal. "I think I'm stuck in this video-game unless you can find a way to get me out." Suddenly the window jumped forward into Strong Bad's face and Homestar proclaimed "By the way, did you know that Total Load can enlarge your vectwoid wegion by twenty-seven percent?" The window increased in size, ignoring Strong Bad's irritated waving. "Click hewe to find out how!" Suddenly the pop-up disappeared, leaving Strong Bad leaning back and waving his short arms at thin air.

Groaning, Strong Bad stood up straight and complained "First the burnination of Strong Badia, and now I've got HomeSpam!" Shaking a fist, he stared out at the burning wastes of his field-sized country and cried "Trogdor, you've messed with the wrong player character this time! I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I have no other choice..." Strong Bad inhaled and dramatically shouted "I... must... KILL... TROGDOR!"

There was a long, silent pause. Strong Bad lowered his arms and kicked the ground in slight embarrassment. "Uh," he asked aloud, "anybody know how to kill a dragon?"

Just as suddenly as it had disappeared, the HomeSpam window popped up again with a cheerful "Hey! Listen!" from its lone occupant. "Those guys in video-games are always killing dwagons! Have you twied getting into the video-game and asking one o' them?"

Strong Bad rolled his eyes. "How am I supposed to get in the game?" he asked, still expecting the laws of reality to apply in that area.

Homestar's window floated around towards the Trogdor machine, still facing Strong Bad. "You wanna get in the game, you gotta WANT it!" Homestar said, as if he was giving an inspirational speech. "Be the ball! Live your dweams! Believe in yourself! You nevew get a second chance to make a first impwession! Now are you gonna get in thewe and show that dwagon who's end boss?"

Oddly enough, the speech seemed to inspire Strong Bad, who confidently proclaimed "Yeah!"

"I can't hear you!" Homestar continued, leaving no room for comment before he finished in a lighter tone "But I'm gonna assume you said 'yeah'. The acoustics in this video-game are TEWWIBLE." He closed his eyes as if he were smiling, and the window promptly vanished.

Strong Bad frowned in annoyance, or at least tried to (he had a feeling his face hadn't visibly changed). So much for Homestar helping him out. He'd have to ask someone else- 'oh crap!' he thought. 'If Homestar and very possibly me now look like one of The Cheat's animations, what's happened to everyone else?' He turned to run towards Bubs' Concession Stand, paused as the rearranged town centre threw his internal compass, then started running again.

* * *

The first thing Strong Bad noticed about Bubs' Stand was that it was smaller, now about the size of a single small room. The scaffolding had shrunk to only being in front of the building, and Marzipan and Bubs, or what Strong Bad assumed to be Marzipan and Bubs, were now standing on the roof. As with Homestar, they now resembled their animated counterparts; Marzipan was an armless broom with a lower half patterned after her favourite purple dress, and Bubs was a blue-skinned, flipper-armed freak with mismatched eyes and strange teeth. Bubs also seemed to be cowering in fear, and Marzipan's mouth was further defying the laws of reality by being an absolutely huge scowl that extended off her face, paired with the angry eyebrows on her blank, different-sized eyes. As Strong Bad approached, she bounced on the top of the stand with a large thud, and the scaffolding collapsed (in a manner that reminded him of a certain classic video-game) and flickered out of existence.

"What was THAT all about?" he called to Bubs, still ignoring Marzipan, who was now pulling gigantic crates out of nowhere and flinging them towards the bushes surrounding the town centre.

"All kinds a' weird goings-on, Strong Bad!" Bubs replied, his teeth disturbingly moving around on his face as he spoke. "There was that big flickerin' and flashin' in the sky, and then Marzipan went plumb loco balonco!"

Marzipan bounced twice more and continued throwing her hammer-space crates.

"See what I mean?" Bubs added.

Homestar's pop-up yet again popped up next to Strong Bad, causing Bubs to flinch back in surprise. "Oh, is Marzipan having one of her 'episodes' again?" he asked. "You just gotta pwetend you're listening to her. Let me handle this." The window disappeared and reappeared almost instantly next to Marzipan. Homestar adopted a put-upon boyfriend stance and mumbled in a monotone "Yes, Marzipan. You're wight, of couwse. Good point."

Marzipan seemed to pause for a moment, then threw another crate in Homestar's direction. His window scooted to the side and avoided it, with Homestar now cheerfully taunting her with "Missed me!" She tossed another crate, and another, and missed every time, Homestar still crying "You call that a thwow? Give 'er the old one-two!"

Strong Bad looked at where the thrown crates were going, and noticed one thunder through a bush, completely destroying it and causing it, like the scaffolding, to flicker out of existence. Making a mental note to investigate later, he turned back to Bubs and Marzipan. With Homestar still distracting his strangely-acting girlfriend, Strong Bad took the chance to talk to Bubs and perhaps enlist his help. "Yo Bubs! Quit foolin' around and come down here!"

"What the?" Bubs replied, angry eyebrows appearing briefly above his eyes. "Who's fooling around? Marzipan went crazy and dragged me up here!"

Strong Bad smiled mischievously. "Are you gonna let that woman tell you what to do?"

"I will if she tosses a crate at me every time I try to move!" Bubs growled. "Those things hurt!"

"You gotta help me fix that Trogdor machine, Bubs!" Strong Bad pleaded, knowing that this was a task Bubs could accomplish and likely the only way to get the world back to normal. "I think Strong Sad broke the 'logic board' or something."

"The logic board? Well, that explains everything!" the orange-clad shopkeep cried. "You must've broken the Eight-Bit Reality Containment Field, causing our universe to combine with the world of videro-games!"

Strong Bad blinked. That DID explain everything! "That's right, STRONG SAD did that," he 'corrected' Bubs. "Can you fix it for me? I mean, him?"

Bubs rolled his right eye (the large blue eye seemed to be the only one capable of rolling. The other was a black spot.) and said "Oh, I've been fixing logic boards since before you were in double diapers! I can even make it so you can play those foreign-type imported games! But I won't be able to do jack OR squat until you do something about that crazy crate lady!"

Strong Bad looked over at Marzipan again, and noticed that Homestar appeared to have grown bored with his game of 'Dodge the Crate' and disappeared. Marzipan was still throwing the crates around, apparently indifferent to the fact that her on-off boyfriend had gone. "I think I actually like Marzikong better this way," he chuckled to Bubs, who frowned again in return.

"Well, I don't! Help me get rid of her!"

Strong Bad laughed and walked off. He knew there was nothing he could do now, and Marzipan seemed to be leaving Bubs pretty much alone as long as he stayed still. The local shopkeep would be safe while Strong Bad looked for a way to stop Marzipan, on top of a way to fix the Trogdor machine, kill Trogdor, de-merge Free Country with the video-game world and rebuild Strong Badia.

'Man, I should write a To-Do list,' Strong Bad thought.

* * *

Past the bush that Marzipan's crates had obliterated, Strong Bad was astonished to find another small area sectioned off by a ring of bushes. This spot was much smaller, and filled mostly by a massive pile of crates identical to the ones Marzipan was throwing (which came bouncing over the bushes occasionally to disappear behind the pile). 'Where were you guys when I needed a power-up in Hallway Warriors III, huh?' Strong Bad thought with a smile. One crate was sitting off on its lonesome away from the pile to Strong Bad's left, and to his right was a man (at least Strong Bad assumed it had been before the explosion) wearing a very blocky hat and carrying a very familiar shovel. His eyes, like Marzipan's and Bubs', were mismatched, one being larger and mostly white, and the other being smaller and black. He had massive lips that remained in an unmoving neutral expression, an underbite like Homestar's, and a large oval-ish body that was a light beige colour. His legs were short and thin, and a very bright blue, and his arms were a pair of gigantic orange gloves with brown stains on the hands. Although The Cheat had not included this character in his animations often, and there was no voice to identify him with, Strong Bad knew the only person he could be. "Yo, Poopsmith!" he called.

In reply, the Poopsmith reached behind him and pulled a cartoon-like sign out of nowhere, holding it up to 'say' "Let's build something".

Strong Bad blinked in confusion. "What?" he asked.

At this point, Homestar popped up again. "Psst, Stwong Bad!" he whispered. "Just between you, me and the intewface layer, I don't think the Poopsmith's playin' with a full bucket! He thinks he's Mista Fixit fwom that old constwuction-workou game." His piece said, the blue window disappeared.

"Wow, that's old-school!" Strong Bad commented, wondering if Marzipan was going through a similar thing back at the Concession Stand. "Well, 'Fixit'," he asked the Poopsmith, "how would you like to join me in my epic quest to, um, rebuild reality? It's one heck of a fixer-upper!"

The Poopsmith put the sign behind his back and pulled it back out, although this time it had a picture on it of several black dots of various shapes and sizes.

Strong Bad stared at the picture for a moment, realizing that whatever this was, the Poopsmith/Mista Fixit wanted it before he would help Strong Bad further. "What is that?" he asked, hoping for some direction in this new addition to his To-Do list. "Buckshot? Chicken feed? A bunch of ellipses?" Feeling like he was scrabbling in the dark, he asked in vain "Is that it? Do you need ellipses?" but the Poopsmith only put the sign away and remained standing.

Strong Bad looked down in disappointment and was surprised to notice a bucket sitting next to him, labelled 'RIVETS' in large, white letters. Strong Bad had played enough games to know that the bucket was supposed to hold rivets, but the only place that kept rivets in Free Country was Bubs' garage in the Town Hall, and with all these bushes sprung up everywhere, he didn't think he could get there. Even if he did, he'd need Bubs' help to get in and acquire said rivets, and Bubs would want something in return for that, as he would count fixing the Trogdor machine as payment for rescuing him from Marzipan and if he'd done that then the Poopsmith would be back to normal and Strong Bad wouldn't even need his help anyway!

With his mind going around in circles, Strong Bad wandered around the small area holding his head (it disturbed him that he could not feel ears or hair) and shaking it. It was just his luck to be stuck in a boring puzzle-based game like Peasant's Quest, instead of the cooler destruction-based ones like Trogdor. Although Peasant's Quest had actually been pretty cool, now he thought about it, even though he never played it without an online walkthrough at his side. He'd never had to worry about the puzzles before.

Suddenly, Strong Bad's thoughts were interrupted by a blocky red-and-blue thing at his feet and he jumped back in alarm. "Woah, I almost stepped in..." He took a closer look at the pixelated entity on the ground and cried in surprise and amazement "SNAKE BOXER?" After a pause, he continued "Oh, I get it. I almost didn't see you there, what with you being two-dimensional and all."

A black box with white border appeared above the top-view boxer, reading simply "...".

'Guess he isn't talkative,' Strong Bad thought, and he ventured "Y'know, your blocky fists of fury could come in pretty handy. Wanna join my party to save reality?"

The black box reappeared, still reading "...". Strong Bad wasn't sure whether it was a negative answer to go with all the other ones he'd been getting today or a rare positive one until the box disappeared, followed by Snake Boxer himself. Just as he did, a diamond-shaped picture of the boxer appeared in Strong Bad's face, accompanied by a loud, eight-bit fanfare and the caption "SNAKE BOXER has joined your party!" The whole thing disappeared almost as soon as it had appeared, leaving Strong Bad standing with wide eyes for several seconds as he figured out that he had just experienced a video-game 'addition to the party' cutscene.

"Wow, that was... different," he muttered, turning back around to the crates. Before him was the crate sitting on its own, standing out from the crowd... a dead giveaway in a game that it was important. "I'd bet most of Strong Sad's savings that THIS crate has something interesting in it!" He grabbed the top of the crate and tried to pull off a lid, but quickly realized there was no lid to pull off... and in fact no visible opening at all. How did the video-game stars do it? After much struggling, he stepped back and panted "Well, THAT'S not opening," before sitting down.

Homestar popped up again to offer his two cents. "Too bad you'we not a videogame-type charactou, 'cause then you'd be able to just punch your way into that cwate."

Strong Bad groaned. "You could've told me that before Snake Boxer disappeared!"

"Oh, he's not gone!" Homestar insisted. "And I don't think he'd do anything with the cwate as is, anyways. He's not much into cwate-boxing." With this, Homestar once again disappeared.

* * *

Strong Bad stretched his arms and back as he returned to the town centre. This new body with its huge husky head was... certainly different, and difficult to get used to. The sudden loss of his fingers was especially odd. He glanced back at Bubs and the possessed Marzipan as he walked around the circle and wondered how everyone else was doing. The Poopsmith thought he was Mista Fixit, Marzipan seemed to think she was Lady Crate Ape (or Donkey Kong, but more likely the Videlectrix ripoff), Homestar was trapped in 'the interface' and Bubs and Strong Bad himself were still mostly normal... that was five of about twelve people he knew well enough to care about. Maybe it was time to go home and check on Strong Sad and The Cheat, if they were still there... and after that he could go to the track, where Strong Mad probably still was, and see if he was okay.

He was interrupted from his thoughts as he passed the brick wall, and noticed out of the corner of his eye two video-game characters standing on it. Strong Bad blinked in confusion and looked up. "Well, if it isn't the Algebros, the edutaining, fireball-chucking stars of Math Kickers," he said, walking up to them. "What's the total, brotals?"

Another text box popped up below the brother on the left, Dex, reading "This 3-D world is totally bogus." It disappeared and then reappeared under the other brother, Ryu, now reading "We must restore balance!"

'Wow, these guys are really talkative compared to Snake Boxer,' Strong Bad thought, telling them "Yeah, I pretty much gotta kill a dragon to get all you guys back where you belong. Wanna come with?"

The text box reappeared under Dex, reading "Radical!" After another pause, it teleported under Ryu, who was still saying "We must restore balance!" Strong Bad figured this was a positive answer, which was confirmed when the brothers disappeared from the brick wall and appeared in the same diamond picture he had seen before, this time captioned "THE ALGEBROS have joined your party!"

"Man, it was worth it just to shut those guys' text boxes up," Strong Bad muttered to himself as he continued walking. As he passed the Drive-Thru Whale, it emitted a loud beeping sound, and he turned to see it now had a black text box above it reading 'sound test'. It beeped again, but with a different kind of beep, and the wrestleman figured this was probably not too different from the normal weirdness the drive-thru speaker ejected.

Suddenly a large, black, two-dimensional spacebus came zooming out of the sky and crashed into a bush between the Whale and the Stick, getting itself stuck there. "Aw, no way! I told you we should have taken the Space Jersey Turnpike!" came a very familiar voice from the bus, which shook as it spoke.

"Is that..." Strong Bad asked in wonder, running up to the spacebus, "the Limozeen Space Machine?"

The pixelated head of Larry Palaroncini that appeared in the game 'Limozeen's Hot Babelien Odyssey' appeared next to the bus, screaming "Well, all right!" Homestar popped up next to him, immediately fanboy-ing with "Oh my gosh, Limozeen Lawwy, I love ya! Will you sign my UI window?"

Restraining himself from fanboy-ing like Homestar, Strong Bad asked with a wide grin "What happened to you guys?"

"We were jammin' through space lookin' for hot babeliens to beam aboard, when all of a sudden - squidelee-doo!" Larry explained with his usual rocker shrieking, "There was a bright flash and we ended up here!"

Strong Bad figured that these were likely doubles of the real Limozeen (or rather just Larry) from the video-game, which he supposed was better than a chance of meeting the real deal and getting a cardboard cutout and a webcam instead.

"Oh no!" Homestar cried. "What can we do to help you wock, wock on?" He didn't seem to notice he had confused Limozeen with a kids' cartoon show, but Strong Bad couldn't be bothered to correct him.

Larry's head disappeared and the bus again shook with his speech. "This bus ain't goin' NOwhere unless we can get a tow!"

Homestar looked at Strong Bad. "Oh boy, we suwe have a lot of stuff to do."

"You mean _I_ have a lot of stuff to do," Strong Bad corrected with a scowl. "You're not doing anything in there!"

"I'm doing lots of things!" the athlete cheerfully insisted. "I'm stwuggling to get loose, checking everybody's okay, reading all these scweens in hewe, trying to get these cuffs off my wrists..."

"Homestar, you don't _have_ wrists right now."

"Of couwse I do!" Homestar argued. "As suwe as I'm wearing long pants!"

Strong Bad growled and stalked off. There seemed to be an opening in the bushes, with a little white path leading through it, just next to the Gremlin and probably the closest exit towards his house. He was just about to get there when movement on the Gremlin's hood caught his eye, and he looked over in astonishment. "Snakes?" he asked aloud. "I don't remember adding snakes to the Dangecar-esque!" He paused before finishing "Why didn't I remember to add snakes?"

"Hey, Strong Bad," Homestar asked, reappearing next to the Gremlin. "You'we taking an awful long time getting into the game."

Rolling his eyes, Strong Bad replied "Look, it's impossible to 'get into' a video-game, Homestar."

"Not wight now it isn't!" Homestar cried. "I can show you how! Just go up to the Trogdor machine and I'll talk you thwough it!"

Strong Bad glanced between the opening in the bushes and the arcade game several times. Check on his family, or save reality as he knew it?

"Stwong Bad?" Homestar asked.

"Yeah, I'm coming," he sighed, walking over to the Trogdor machine.

Homestar went into inspirational speech mode again, and music even seemed to be playing in the background to support him this time. "Alwight, wrestleman! We're getting into the game! You gotta want it, get it? Got it? Good! Let's do this doohickey!"

Strong Bad couldn't help smiling as he stood next to the arcade machine, almost feeling like a kid playing with his best friend again. "So what do I do?"

"You gotta be next to the open doow fou this to work," Homestar explained, floating over to the cabinet door.

"Right." Strong Bad nodded and walked over next to the blue window.

"You feel that pull?"

"Pull? What pu-" he began to ask, but while waving his boxing-glove hand around suddenly felt a strange, other-worldly force trying to drag him towards the cabinet door. "Oh, that pull."

"You gotta jump towards the open doow and let it pull you in to the Videlectrix Mainfwame!" Homestar proclaimed joyfully. "It's easy as cake!"

"But Homestar," Strong Bad hesitated, "that door's too small for me to fit through." He self-consciously rubbed the side of his head, thinking that his body might fit fine, but his freakishly-inflated head would not.

"Oh, don't worry about that!" Homestar explained. "The video-game world will get you thwough fine!"

Strong Bad looked warily at the small cabinet door, which had certainly been larger before the explosion, and it almost seemed to shrink while he stared. "Get in the game," he said to himself nervously, remembering what had happened last time he jumped anywhere near the old arcade game. "All right, let's do this." He spent another moment mentally preparing himself, then closed his eyes and jumped in the general direction of the Trogdor machine.


	4. ACT 1: Mainframe of Videlectrix Company

The formatting in this upload system is really screwed up, isn't it? I'm going back and fixing it, though, so it should be good-looking soon.

Also, my thanks to Sarahbelle Saunders and GeoOgre for putting this on Story Alert, and to Spatze for reviewing on top of that!

One last additional note: One of my favourite gags in 8-Bit Is Enough was the 'conversation' with Coach Z in this chapter. Seriously, I clicked on Coach Z like ten times because it made my brother and me laugh so much! I hope you enjoy reading it like I was when writing it!

* * *

**CHAPTER FOUR - The Videlectrix Mainframe**

The next few seconds were certainly the strangest Strong Bad had ever experienced in his life. Every one of his senses, bar sight, was pushed and pulled by the otherworldly force, which had seemed to grab him in midair and put him through a mental rollercoaster. He had been thrown this way and that, spun in circles, turned upside-down, even slammed into a hard surface once or twice. After what seemed like a full minute, everything seemed to return to normal, and Strong Bad warily opened his eyes again to see... well, nothing. He double-checked his eyes really were open by rubbing them briefly with his hands (annoyingly, said hands were still boxing gloves) and looking all around him. Oddly enough, he could see himself perfectly fine, so he hadn't gone blind. He was just stuck in some pitch-black world that was somehow well-lit.

After a moment or two of silence, a faint, monophonic tune echoed through the nothingness. Strong Bad instantly recognised the theme tune of the Videlectrix company and ran in the direction the music was coming from. He looked around, wondering if he would see the unnamed mascot of the company tripping somewhere, but instead found himself inexplicably tripping on nothing and falling flat on his face.

Mortified, Strong Bad jumped to his feet and cried "I'm up! Nobody saw that! It's cool!"

Around him, the world he was in turned blue and seven hexagons materialised high in the sky, each displaying the title screen of a game Strong Bad knew. In the distance, circles of blue and green slowly spun around, and every step he took left rippling hexagons where he had touched the invisible floor.

"Whoa, what is this place?" Strong Bad wondered in amazement. "It's like, every cool videogame ever made, all in one place! Am I... in heaven?"

Right on cue, the familiar blue window popped up. "Hey, Strong Bad!"

"No, clearly not heaven," the wrestleman muttered.

"Word on the stweet is you're twying to take down this Twogdor character," Homestar continued conspiratorially.

Strong Bad sighed and irritatedly said "That's right, Homestar. You were there when I said it out loud twice."

"Shhh! You nevou know who might be listening!" he whispered, eyes narrowed. "I heaw thewe's a regular Trogdor-killing expert inside Peasantry." He floated over to one of the hexagons, which displayed the familiar title 'Peasant's Quest' and the pixelated picture of its hero disguised as a peasant. "Fella by the name of Rathou Dashing. Tell him the H-Staw Man sent you!" With that, Homestar vanished.

Strong Bad blinked and looked up at the Peasant's Quest hexagon in amazement. "Peasant's Quest?" he confirmed in excitement. "You mean I get to go inside the best-selling video computer TV game of all time?" He ran up to the hexagon and looked up with a wide smile as a deep voice emerged from above.

"Beyond this door, a world of short-panted adventure awaits! Are you ready to experience the world of Peasantry first-hand?"

Strong Bad nodded vigorously. "Ready? I've only been waiting for this my entire life!"

"Then let's do this," the deep voice announced. "But first: thou must answer mine riddle! What is Paul Revere's favourite ice cream flavour?"

Astonished, Strong Bad paused before replying "What? What kind of question is that? Who are you, anyway?"

"I am the Copy Protector," the voice poshly boomed, before the title screen in the hexagon suddenly changed to an image of a blue code-wheel. "Use the code wheel and InvisiGlasses to aid you on your quest." Below Strong Bad's feet, a large wheel similar to the one pictured faded into existence. "The answer is on page 38 of your manual."

"_Manual?_" Strong Bad cried in exasperation. "But this game is like a billion years old! I don't have the manual!"

"Then thou art screwed."

Strong Bad growled under his breath, and, on cue, Homestar reappeared to offer his two cents.

"You don't need a manual, Strong Bad! Isn't that Spiwits of '76 game back at your house?"

The wrestleman nodded and wondered how Homestar had known about that game.

"All you gots to do is figuwe out what Paul Revewe's ghost looks like. Why don't you go see him in person?" His piece said, Homestar disappeared again.

"That's true," Strong Bad muttered to himself, looking down and noticing the huge code wheel at his feet again. "What am I supposed to do with that giant wheel thing?" he asked the Copy Protector.

"'Tis all very simple," the voice explained. "Rotate the wheel to match up the Videlectrix character with the item he holds in the game, like it's shown on page 38 of your manual! Then use the included InvisiGlasses to read the answer to mine riddle."

Strong Bad huffed. "How am I supposed to get some InvisiGlasses? They haven't made those since 'Thy Dungeonman 0: No Text Edition'!"

"Then thou art well and truly doomed," the Copy Protector insisted. "The secret art of looking at things through red translucent cellophane has been lost to the mists of time."

Rolling his eyes, Strong Bad turned away from the hexagon panel and gigantic codewheel. Whether the Protector was being sarcastic in his last comment was hard to tell, but regardless, that still left the question of how he was supposed to find some. Plus, it turned out that Homestar had been leading him offcourse when insisting Strong Bad enter the Mainframe... In fact, how was he supposed to get out?

"Homestar?" Strong Bad called, expecting the familiar, mostly-unwanted blue window to pop up in response.

There was no answer.

"Homestar? Michael?" he tried again, wondering where the no-armed whitey had gotten to.

No answer.

"Great," Strong Bad muttered. When he DIDN'T want Homestar, the athlete was all up in his face, but when he DID, he was nowhere to be found. Sighing, Strong Bad looked up at the other six hexagon panels and figured one of them had to lead back to Free Country. The Peasant's Quest one presumably led to Peasantry, even though it refused to activate the portal right now.

He turned to the first panel on his left and read aloud "Stinkoman 20X6..." It didn't seem to react to him, so he figured there was no copy protector (thank GOODNESS) and he would have to... jump through it or something to go through. "Yes, I believe I AM asking for a challenge!" he cried, and leapt up in the direction of the blue hexagon...

... only to hit the panel with a loud thump and fall back to the invisible floor. "Ow!" he mumbled, looking up at the panel and noticing flashing red text that had now appeared there. " 'Region locked'?" he angrily read aloud. "Aww, man! What kind of crappy alternate reality can't play imported video games?" He pulled himself to his feet and advanced to the next panel along.

This panel was different from the others, its border being a dull grey instead of the bright blue of the others, and it was not slowly rocking side to side like the others. As if it could sense Strong Bad watching, angry red text flashed over its picture, reading 'FAIL: CHARACTER NOT FOUND'. Strong Bad shrugged, muttering "I guess the Trogdor game would be pretty lame without the Trogdor." It was a shame too, because he had a feeling this one led to the very arcade machine he had jumped through, and so it should have been a major candidate for leading him back to Free Country.

The next panel along was unfamiliar at first, but eventually Strong Bad recognised the game as one of Homestar's, for his old Atari system at his house. " 'The Videlectrix Halfathlon'," he read aloud, " 'featuring the finest top-tier Soviet athletes Videlectrix could afford to license'." He snorted in amusement and commented "Sounds half-athed, all right."

Again, as the panel did not respond, Strong Bad figured he had to try jumping through it again, so he closed his eyes, quickly muttered "I hope this works!" and jumped towards the hexagon panel.

* * *

Senses were pulled, mind was pushed, and Strong Bad even dared to open his eyes after a second or two. At first, although he could feel chaos everywhere, he could only see black, but then small blue hexagons, each one smaller than the one previous, came flying towards him, and he could see some kind of track and field past them. At first, they seemed incredibly pixely, but once he had passed the hexagons and paused in mid-air, they flashed to less pixely, then to a crude three-dimensional version, and finally to a fully-detailed location that was instantly familiar. Strong Bad was deposited at this point and gently fell to his feet on the grass, still puzzling how he could know the main location of a game he had never played.

As he looked around, he realised that the area was surrounded by a ring of bushes, just like the town centre of Free Country, and seemed to have the same look of a real place taken over by the video game reality... In fact, there was a man in green standing by the building (which looked suspiciously like the Free Country gym) wearing a purple and blue hat and a giant golden Z around his middle... and Strong Bad suddenly realised what had happened here.

"Coach Z!" he called, running over to the middle-aged, currently faceless, man who was being attacked by some scorpions from 'Pitfall!'.

The Coach looked up with his blank eyes and cried, panicked, "Strong Bad! Get the-" Suddenly the life bar above his head reached zero, and he fell to the ground, apparently dead. A large 'Continue?' sprung up and floated happily just below the empty life bar.

Strong Bad paused for a moment, then chuckled. "Man, that looked like it hurt! I gotta do that again!" He ran up to Coach Z's body, marvelled at the fact the vicious scorpions were not interested in him in the least, and reached forward to tap the Coach's hand. The 'Continue?' prompt disappeared, the life bar partially refilled, and Coach Z jumped to his feet. "As I was saying," Strong Bad began, but he was quickly interrupted.

"Strong Bad, don't let-" Coach Z managed to shout before the attacking scorpions once again downed him and the 'Continue?' prompt sprung back up.

"That looked painful," Strong Bad muttered through a smile, and he decided, even though he obviously wouldn't be able to talk to Coach Z without first distracting the scorpions, it would be hilarious to revive Coach Z just once more.

This time, Coach Z managed to angrily cry "Why do you keep-" before the scorpions won again.

Strong Bad laughed loudly and said "I could do this all day!" Despite this, he decided to look around and see what else had changed.

The biggest change to the track, apart from the sudden surrounding of bushes, was the fact that an area was fenced off and converted into a death-defying obstacle course worthy of any video-game. Next to it was a shot-put area with some large, blocky character throwing shot-puts he was pulling out of nowhere, similar to Marzipan and her crates. The small pool that was usually in the centre of the track had been moved to be part of the obstacle course, and, floating next to it, was a metal ball with a digital readout around the centre, which read 'CHECKPOINT' in green, blocky letters.

"Hey, what's this do?" Strong Bad asked himself, and knocked on the metal ball with a boxing-glove fist. A window popped up above it, reading "CHECKPOINT!! YOU ARE CARRYING:" and below it was a panel with a single lone circle inside. "Checkpoint?" Strong Bad asked in confusion, and looked closely at the circle. It had a picture of a gold-coloured, round key, which Strong Bad recognised with a jolt as the case key for the Trogdor Machine. He still had that? The window disappeared, and, with a beep, a green rope of some kind flashed into existence above the pool. Strong Bad walked over to investigate and suddenly realised the pool appeared to be full of _lava_. That was certainly an impossibility in real life.

"Can't wait to see Homestar swimming laps in that," Strong Bad muttered to himself.

On cue, Homestar popped up and determinately cried "Put me in, coach! That pool of acid took me by surpwise, but I got this lava thing under contwol! It's all mental, you see."

"YOU'RE all mental," Strong Bad replied, before suddenly realising Homestar had appeared. "Homestar!" he said in surprise. "Where have you been?"

Homestar blinked. "What do you mean? Whewe you looking for me?"

Strong Bad tutted and rolled his eyes. "Duh. You left me stuck in that mainframe on my own! How was I supposed to get back to Free Country?"

"Oh," Homestar said, "sowwy about that! I was checkin' up on evewybody evewybody, so I must've forgotten!" He either ignored or didn't notice Strong Bad's irritated groan, and continued "I managed to owganise it in there so you only have the links to the games you'll need. One of 'em will get you back to the Town Centre."

"But you forgot one," Strong Bad insisted. "We need to get into Spirits of '76, remember? I didn't see that one in there."

Homestar thought for a few moments, before replying "I'm pretty suwe I got them all... I don't know if I even saw that one!" He looked around the track, then disappeared without another word.

"He better be going to check up on that game," Strong Bad mumbled, then turned his attention back to what he had been doing before. In fact, what _had_ he been doing before?

Oh, right, trying to get back home. The Cheat and Strong Sad were probably wondering what the crap was going on. Actually, so was Strong Mad, wherever he was. Strong Bad thought for a moment and remembered Strong Mad going to the track that morning to train with Coach Z, deciding to stay there over the premiere of Dangeresque. Coach Z had made it back, obviously... but where was Strong Mad?

With a jolt of realisation, Strong Bad spun around to the large, block-shaped character throwing shotputs across the field. 'How was it The Cheat designed Strong Mad again?' he rhetorically asked himself. 'An awful lot like a big brick, wasn't it?' He sighed with relief that at least he knew Strong Mad was safe and unaffected by the video-game reality.

"Hey there, Gigantor," Strong Bad called as he approached his older brother.

Strong Mad turned to face the interruption to his repetitive throwing and shouted "I PUT SHOT!"

"Oh boy oh boy!" cried Homestar, popping up in extreme excitement. "Strong Bad, I'm too embawwassed! Could you get me an autogwaph?"

Strong Bad frowned in annoyance. "An autograph?" he asked in confusion. "It's just Strong Mad!"

"That's not just any Strong Mad!" Homestar insisted. "He's been possessed by the eight-bit spiwit of Putchnya Shotski, honowable mention shot-put semi-finalist of the 1982 Winter Olympics!" Homestar bounced in his window with excitement. "He's my gweatest sports hewo... that Videlectrix could affowd to license!"

"Spirit as in, 'checking up on Spirits of '76'?" Strong Bad deadpanned, and Homestar cried "Oh, wight!" in reply before disappearing again.

Strong Bad briefly chuckled, then turned back to his brother. "Putchnya Shotski, huh? I always suspected there was a Soviet shot-putter trapped inside your body, Strong Mad," he sarcastically remarked. Strong Mad only grinned widely. "So, big guy," Strong Bad ventured, "wanna join my party to save the world from Trogdor?"

Strong Mad stopped smiling and shouted "I PUT SHOT! I WIN TROPHY!"

As changing the subject was a common ploy of Strong Mad's to avoid saying 'no' (for some reason he hated disappointing people), Strong Bad knew that this shot-putter that had possessed his older brother, like Lady Crate Ape with Marzipan and Mista Fixit with the Poopsmith, cared not for Trogdor or the possible destruction of Free Country... just some eight-bit trophy at the other end of an obstacle course. "Dang," he muttered.

Strong Bad turned away from his brother, who went straight back to his shot-puts, and wandered back over to the lava pit. Considering this was a video-game, surely death wasn't too big an obstacle... to use a rather bad pun. Also, the obstacle course only seemed to have two dangers: swinging on a vine over a lava pit and navigating the slippery ice and penguins further along. 'The Halfathlon doesn't seem like too hard a game,' Strong Bad thought. 'I bet I could do this easy!' He watched the vine swing a couple of times, then leapt and grabbed it as it came close to him. Once it swung back the other way, he let go and landed safely on the other side, in a long, dirt-covered pit. "And he sticks the landing!" the wrestleman cried in triumph. "U. S. A! U. S. A!" Still smiling, he ran over to the ice and snow, and took a closer look at it. "Ah, the obligatory ice level. Less friction, more penguins," he muttered, then jumped over and bounced on the penguins' heads, one to the other. "Hup! Hup! Hup! Hup!" he grunted as he bounced, reaching the other side far more quickly than if he had slid over the ice.

"That was easier than I thought," Strong Bad said as he walked over to the eight-bit trophy hanging in mid-air. "I wonder why Strong Mad didn't just come over and take it himself?"

As Strong Bad grabbed the two-dimensional trophy, he heard Strong Mad shouting across the obstacle course "I PUT SHOT!" and wondered how Strong Mad had heard him.

"He's been concentratin' on his shot-put game," Homestar explained as he popped up again, "at the expense of his vine-swingin' and penguin-hoppin' perfowmance. Let's hope that doesn't huwt him in the finals!"

Strong Bad sighed. "Yeah, and how's your finding-Spirits-of-76 performance going?"

Homestar hesitated. "Um... actually, I couldn't find it anywhewe. I don't know what's happened to it."

"Right..."

"But at least we know you have that game at your house!" Homestar tried to reassure Strong Bad. "We can just go thewe!"

"You mean _I_ can go there," Strong Bad corrected. "Besides, I'm just gonna take this trophy over to Strong Mad first; see if he'll join the party."

Homestar looked down at the flat trophy. "Don't you want to put that away or somethin'? It's gonna be hawd cawwyin' that over the lava pit."

Strong Bad frowned. "Put it away? How, exactly, am I meant to do that?" He looked down at his heavily-stylised body. His shirt, which had the pocket containing the case key, may have gone but the key it contained was obviously still around somewhere, and his pants... seemed to be a part of his body like the boxing gloves, which just gave Strong Bad the jibblies.

"It's easy! You're in a videogame, wemembow? In videogames, you always have a tonne of stuff hidden in your pants!"

"That's not an image I want to keep in mind," Strong Bad said with disgust. "But alright, how do I get this thing in my pants?" He paused and added "I can't believe I asked that."

"You just reach awound and push it in!" Homestar proclaimed, far more cheerily than Strong Bad cared for. "It's not much different from weal life!"

Strong Bad stood staring for several moments, then shook his head in exasperation. Sure enough, running through the motions of putting the large trophy in his pants (which by all laws of reality should be impossible) caused it to disappear, and he blinked in astonishment. "Woah, it does work!" He looked back up to Homestar and continued "Okay, so now I have two items in my inventory... how do I get them out again?"

"You just reach awound again," Homestar explained patiently, "and think of what you want to take out. Then it should just appeaw in your hand!"

Strong Bad thought hard of the small case key and grabbed at the line between his chest and pants, and, true to Homestar's word, the golden-coloured key materialised in his boxing-glove hand. "Hey, wow!" he said, putting the key back in his inventory. "That makes life loads easier!"

"You'we welcome!" Homestar cried with a smile, despite not being thanked, and promptly disappeared.

Strong Bad raced back across the obstacle course, bouncing on the penguin heads (he suddenly realised he could jump much higher and further now... no wonder he'd been able to reach those portals in the mainframe!) and swinging over the lava pit. Strong Mad was still in the same position he was in earlier, throwing shot-puts that appeared out of thin air across a field repeatedly without any sign of boredom.

"Alrighty, Comrade Shotski," Strong Bad called as he approached his possessed brother. "On behalf of the Videlectrix Gaming Association..." He paused to pull out the trophy, then held it up to Strong Mad proudly. "I present to you this trophy for Superior Halfathery in the Videlectrix Halfathlon."

To help in the 'awarding', Homestar reappeared and sang a short fanfare as Strong Bad handed over the yellow trophy.

"PUT SHOT SHOT PUT TROPHY!" Strong Mad cried joyfully, jumping up and down and clapping. "SOLZHENITSYN! GLASNOST!"

"Yeah yeah yeah, ich bin ein donut," Strong Bad interrupted impatiently. "Are you joining my party or what?"

The trophy in Strong Mad's hands disappeared, and the shot-putter, still ecstatic, shouted in reply "DA! DA!"

Like Snake Boxer and the Algebros before him, Strong Mad/Putchnya Shotski shrank down into nothing and was announced by a fanfare and diamond-shaped picture, captioned "STRONG MAD has joined your party!"

"Actually, that fanfare is kinda cool," Strong Bad mumbled to himself, mostly relieved that Strong Mad was now safe for certain... even if he had no idea where exactly his party members were disappearing to... He didn't really want to think about that.

"Hey, Strong Bad," Homestar said, bouncing in his window, "We'd bettou get back into the mainfwame now."

Strong Bad looked up in confusion. "Huh? What do you mean by that? We can just walk from here, right? My house is just a little ways east." He pointed in the direction the House of Strong usually was from the track.

Homestar shook his head. "Nope. This is the Videlectrix Halfathlon. The track was sepewated from Free Countwy in the explosion and taken ovou."

"Great," Strong Bad sighed. "Just what I needed to hear." Groaning in irritation, he walked over to the portal he had come in by, still floating there in its blue hexagon glory. "This portal thing is gonna get real tiring real soon..." With an annoyed frown, he jumped towards the portal and teleported through to the Mainframe.


	5. ACT 1: CreepOut by GelArshie

Hey people!

I just thought I'd point out... One of my favourite things to do with stupid characters is to give them one skill they're scarily clever at... I only just noticed I've done that with Homestar. It amuses me, although I am suitably ashamed, not to mention surprised it took me this long to notice what I was doing!

**

* * *

CHAPTER FIVE - Gel-Arshie Creep-Out**

The next panel to the left of the Halfathlon was a game Strong Bad had played only once several months ago, and had not expected to see again so soon. "_Gel-Arshie's Pro Fruitboarder?_" he asked in disbelief as Homestar appeared by his side. "What could we possibly need to do in there?"

"We need something red an' see-thwough, wight?" Homestar answered. "You know, to use as Invisiglasses?"

Strong Bad frowned in thought for several moments. "What does that have to do with this piece-of-crap game?"

"Just go on in and see!" Homestar insisted, before disappearing again.

Groaning, Strong Bad walked up to the hexagon panel, wondering if it was any less lame on the inside, and jumped.

* * *

At first, Strong Bad thought he had got stuck in the portal, but once he was spat out at the other end, he quickly realised the crappy licensed game was mostly a pitch-black room. "Weird," he said to himself, looking up at a large piece of grey machinery to his right and the large replication of the title screen to his left. "I don't remember the Gel-Arshie game looking like this."

"What're you doing back here?!" came a sudden cry of indignation, as the two-dimensional Gel-Arshie jumped off the surfboard on the title-screen and floated down to the ground. "Nobody's allowed backstage without a chaperone!" he insisted.

"Look, having to talk to you is no bowl of cherries for me, either," Strong Bad replied in irritation, looking over at the large containers of red fruit and pineapples under the machinery.

Gel-Arshie creepily moaned and cried "Cherries? Where? I love cherries!"

Strong Bad shivered, and reluctantly continued "Anyways, as I was saying, I thought I was jumpin' into the game. How come you're just standing around here, not not-loafing?"

"That's 'cause nobody's playing the game!" Gel-Arshie waved his stick-like arms into the pattern of a sine-wave and cried "I'm in attract mode!"

"Freakshow," Strong Bad muttered.

The red gelatine marshmallow didn't seem to hear. "Have you come to watch me get radical on the half-pipe?"

"No. I'm looking for anybody to help me get farther in a video-game so I can kill a dragon," Strong Bad explained, sincerely hoping Gel-Arshie wasn't involved. 'It had better be Professor Pineapple over at that giant pipe that I need!' he thought.

"Well KEEP LOOKIN'!" Gel-Arshie suddenly shrieked. "Around here, I'm in charge. I'M THE GOD! And I ain't leaving until somebody hits the kill... kill... KILL SCREEN!" He jumped into the air with his legs in a split, and slowly floated back to the ground.

Homestar popped up and whispered "Hey Strong Bad, what's a kill-kill-kill scween?"

"Oh, that's when you play a videogame for so long, and get a score so high, and have a life so depressing, that you break the videogame!" Strong Bad explained, getting slowly more excited as he spoke. Breaking this game was definitely something he would love to do... if it didn't involve releasing Gel-Arshie unto the world.

"Ohhh," Homestar said. Without pause, he continued with a smile "Hey Strong Bad, why is the sky blue?"

Strong Bad frowned and waved a boxing glove at the blue window. "Go away, Homestar!" he cried in irritation as Homestar disappeared. "You only get one question per day!"

As Gel-Arshie was busy singing to himself ("They're fluffity, they're puffity... one, two, three, four, five!"), Strong Bad took the chance to escape to the giant machinery. It resembled a large pipe, coming out of nowhere along the 'roof' and dropping down to feed into the pineapple gun that served as the main danger in the game. Sitting on top of the gun, in the same position as he was in the game, was the main enemy, Professor Pineapple. Below the pipe were two huge crates of food; One was labelled 'FRUIT SUPPLY' and filled with red cherries, apples and strawberries. The other was labelled 'AMMO' and filled with pineapple slices. On the pipe above the ammo crate was a cone, sucking up the slices for the pineapple gun. Next to the crates was a red lever, unlabelled, and Strong Bad reached this first.

"I have yet to meet a random lever that I could not push for no reason," he chuckled, flipping the lever to one side and causing the intake cone to slide over above the fruit crate with loud, clanking machinery.

Over at the pineapple gun, Professor Pineapple was still not moving, stuck in his evil scowl.

"So, Professor Pineapple," Strong Bad asked, approaching the designated villain, "got any ideas on how I can take out Trog... what?" As he got closer, he suddenly realised the reason the Professor was not moving: He was a flat piece of card held to the gun using bright red, yellow and blue wires and thick tape. "Oh, what a rip-off! He's not even real! He's just a prop!"

Gel-Arshie heard the uproar and piped in with "Sometimes... after the game shuts down... I can hear him talking to me. He tells me to do things."

Strong Bad shivered in disgust. Oh boy, he wanted to get rid of that translucent marshmallow.

Next to the gun, hidden around the side, was a small slider, labelled clearly with "DIFFICULTY: LOW - - - HIGH". Strong Bad shook his head and thought 'No wonder this game is so boring!' He flicked it from LOW to HIGH and said aloud "Now it's set to high!"

"Hi! I'm Gel-Arshie!" the gelatine marshmallow chirped from the other side of the room.

Strong Bad rolled his eyes and reluctantly trudged back towards the portal next to the screen. As he passed Gel-Arshie, who was still humming various Fluffy Puff Marshmallows jingles to himself, he suddenly noticed something about the huge screen setup to his right. "It's made out of... plywood and duct tape!" he exclaimed in astonishment as Homestar popped up beside him. "I knew this game was cheap, but where's the craftsmanship, people?"

"That's why I never go backstage in the theatou," Homestar added. "It wuins the magic..." He looked over towards the screen, then gasped and said "Hey, I can see your house from hewe!"

"No, Homestar," Strong Bad corrected, turning to face the screen, "you're only supposed to say that when you're way high up..." He blinked and looked at the screen closer. "Oh wait... I really _can_ see my house from here! We must be inside my own FunMachine!" He paused, then shivered and whispered to Homestar "It's kind of a creep-take knowing Gel-Arshie can look out into my bedroom."

Homestar nodded in agreement. "At least when you get him to join your pawty, he won't be able to do that anymowe."

Strong Bad groaned "Aw, do we HAVE to get him to join the party? Isn't there something else red and translucent in Free Country we can use?"

"Nope," Homestar replied, shaking his head. "Jelaton-Mawshie is the only thing available! I looked all over." With that, he disappeared.

Strong Bad groaned again. Just thinking about talking to that unsettling Gel-Arshie again gave him the jibblies. At least he'd done his share of fiddling around inside. All he had to do now was play it on the other side of the screen. 'Breaking the game now should be a cinch!' he thought, glad that at least the game would be unplayable following this 'adventure'.

Just visible through the screen, Strong Bad could see that apparently his room was unchanged. It seemed slightly darker, although that may have been the cheap screen, and he was sure there was something hiding behind the Taranchula standee by the open door... and was that a ghost he just saw float past the door? In fact, why was his room even visible at all? He had left Spirits of '76 in his FunMachine that morning... but, of course, The Cheat had been wanting to play the Gel-Arshie game when he left... 'I guess I answered my own question there,' he thought. At that moment, he was startled by what he could have sworn was another ghost suddenly zooming past the screen. It was a very familiar-looking ghost, too...

Shaking his head, Strong Bad dismissed the ghosts as seeing things and headed back to the portal.

* * *

To the left of Gel-Arshie's Fruitboarder was a far more familiar game that Strong Bad had used as a simulator prop in Dangeresque 3, sitting serenely in its blue hexagon panel: Space Circus Catastrophe. Strong Bad shook his head and spoke aloud to address the currently-invisible Homestar. "No way am I going in there, man. Those evil space clowns are BAD NEWS." He rubbed his chin in thought and conceded "I love those performing bears, though!"

Oddly enough, the characters inside heard him, and a two-dimensional performing bear wearing a glass globe on its head and a tutu jumped out of the portal and happily circled Strong Bad, bouncing on a little pink ball it was balancing on.

Surprised, the wrestleman waved his boxing-glove hands at the bear, laughing "No! Down boy, down!" but the bear ignored him and quickly forced its way into the party.

The "PERFORMING BEAR has joined your party!" caption appeared again, along with the fanfare and diamond-shaped picture of the brown bear.

Strong Bad ignored the fanfare, laughing to himself "Aw, he's already gotten attached. Now I gotta keep him."

As Homestar had not appeared again, Strong Bad moved on to the last of the seven panels. This was not a game he had ever seen before, and didn't think could actually exist in real life. It had a simple blue background with lighter stripes, and in front of it, in dramatic walking poses, were twelve very familiar character designs. "What the-?" he asked aloud, stepping closer to see the twelve. In the centre was the big-headed, mask-wearing shortie that The Cheat had drawn one day to represent Strong Bad in his animations. To his left was the no-armed whitey that was Homestar, and to his right the yellow spotted anvil-shaped creature that was The Cheat himself. Along the line, Strong Bad instantly recognised those he had just seen out in the videogame-affected world, Bubs, Strong Mad, Marzipan, Coach Z and the Poopsmith, and took a little longer to attach a name to the others, Strong Sad, the King of Town, Pom Pom and Homsar. Why it was only the twelve residents of Free Country he knew well he soon discovered when he read the title: " 'Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People'? Was this a game The Cheat made and didn't share or something? And what's it doing in the Videlectrix Mainframe?" As Homestar did not appear to answer questions (that was getting rather annoying), he shook his head and wondered what kind of game it was. "I hope that's one of those games with, like, guns and swords and setting things on fire! And not one of those boring 'use pie on cat' type jobs."

Late as always, Homestar finally popped up to say "I think you're gonna be disappointed in this one, Stwong Bad."

"Yeah yeah yeah," Strong Bad said, brushing Homestar off and jumping straight into the portal.

* * *

The green grass and blue sky had, from inside the portal, looked like a promising game with effort put into it... until Strong Bad left the portal fully and found himself standing just outside the door of the Trogdor machine in the town centre.

"Oh," he muttered.

"Told ya," Homestar pointed out as he reappeared.

Strong Bad waved the blue window away and cried "Shut it," heading straight for his house in the south-east. The pathway, luckily, was still accessible via the small gap in the bushes behind the Gremlin he had spotted before. In the gap was a small, white cobble-stone path, which had very definitely never been there before the whole 'videogame' thing. He only shrugged and walked over the path, expecting to be walking for half an hour...

... and getting there in half a second. "Huh?" Strong Bad cried, thrown for a loop by the sudden, unexpected teleportation... and the rapid changing of the area around his white-panelled house.

The sky was a deep, starless black, and the area was, predictably, surrounded by bushes with just the one gap with a short, white path leading out. Like some of the videogames, it was somehow lit by an invisible light from somewhere, despite the black sky. The house itself was slightly more... clean and perfect in its videogame form, and, floating in and out of the walls at regular intervals, were the familiar eight-bit ghosts he had glimpsed from inside his FunMachine.

"Great. And now the house is haunted," Strong Bad deadpanned, attempting to cross his arms but failing due to his huge boxing-glove hands.

Homestar popped up on cue, looking rather scared by the situation. "G-g-g-ghosts?" he stuttered in fright, hiding in a bottom corner of the window. "You go on without me, big guy. I'll stay back in the van with The Cheat!"

Strong Bad rolled his eyes and corrected Homestar. "One, you don't have a van. Two, I wish I could get rid of you that easily. And three, these aren't even the groundskeeper-wearing-a-sheet-covered-in-phosphorescent-paint kinda ghosts, anyway! They're from Spirits of '76, the game we've been looking for for severals of minutes!"

Homestar blinked, and reluctantly came out from his corner. "Thewe were ghosts in that game?" he asked.

"Um, yeah," Strong Bad replied, wondering how Homestar hadn't figured that out from the title. "It's a Bicentennial-themed game where you're a big, spooky pixel, running around a black screen picking up other spooky pixels!"

"Awe they," Homestar asked, gulping in fear, "spooky GHOST pixels?" Without waiting for an answer, he disappeared.

Strong Bad rolled his eyes again and said to himself "I guess if I'm gonna find anyone in there, whether brother, friend or Paul Revere, there's only one thing to do..." He walked up to the door, pushed it open and jumped in.

Inside the house, any form of light was somehow extinguished, leaving it pitch-black and impossible to navigate without prior knowledge of the layout. The windows stood out as outside was visible through them despite nothing inside being lit. The ghosts that had been floating out of the walls outside were nowhere to be seen, so Strong Bad presumed they would not be a problem. "Ergh," he muttered, "how am I supposed to see anything in here?" He walked forwards, reaching to feel for the kitchen bench that would be directly in front of him, but was interrupted as several red-coated eight-bit ghosts appeared from the walls and surrounded him.

"LEAVE THIS PLACE!" they moaned as one, and before Strong Bad could react, they grabbed him and threw him out his own front door to land on his face in the yard.

"Ow!" the wrestleman cried, his voice muffled by the grass, and he sat up in disappointment, quickly turning back to face the now-closed door. "Why don't you try doing that to my face, stupid ghost!"

On cue, Homestar appeared again to say "I think they DID do'd that to your face."

Strong Bad, annoyed at Homestar's tendency to point out the obvious, insisted "No, they didn't!" He jumped to his feet. "Besides, it was too dark to tell. I couldn't see my boxing glove..." He paused, thought a moment, and continued "Actually, I COULD see my boxing glove in front of my face, but I couldn't see the house!"

"Well," Homestar replied, "we'll have to find a way to keep those ghosts at bay so you can find Paul Revewe!"

"AND clear those ghosts out of my house," Strong Bad added. "Besides, what 'we'? I'm the one doing all the work!"

Homestar did not answer, only standing still for a few moments and disappearing. Strong Bad got the feeling he'd tried to shrug, but, without arms, it was a pointless gesture. Shrugging himself, Strong Bad turned and headed back to the white cobbled path to teleport back to the town centre.


	6. ACT 1: Intermission

Hello again! Firstly, my thanks to Gijinka Renamon for favouriting my story, and to badpirate and xRavenwing for adding to Story Alert! Oh, and additional thanks to badpirate for reviewing, too!

Nextly... I apologise very very much for not updating more often prior to this. I had almost the entire story finished when I decided to get up the courage to put it up here, and then my computer crashed last weekend and I lost a lot of stuff, which just happened to include a little folder titled 'Homestar Runner'... I've been furiously trying to rewrite it since, and I literally only just finished this chapter a few minutes ago, so it's a bit unpolished.

For this chapter, to try and apologise, I decided to explore the backstories a bit. It's different to what was in the original Chapter 6, but at least Strong Bad seems to be in-character this time. Believe it or not, in the original version he actually broke down and cried, which I was never quite comfortable with.

Oh yeah, if you spot a reference to 'Shaun', it's supposed to be 'Shawn'. I misremembered how I spelt it originally in my furious retyping of all the planning I could remember before rereading my own story and discovering I'd gotten it wrong. I also took the oppertunity to change a few things about the AU, which I shall have to retcon into the earlier chapters later.

Um... I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

**CHAPTER SIX - Interlude**

Once Strong Bad returned to the Town Centre, he paused for a moment and sighed. He could hear around him cheery music that in no way matched his mood (and of course Marzipan throwing crates at Bubs from the direction of the Stand), and it only made him angrier. It was just his luck for his life to be turned into a never-ending series of puzzles in video-game-land instead of something cool. Homestar seemed to be enjoying himself, but he was stupid and dumb and stupidly dumb and dumbly stupid, so Strong Bad cared not one bit for what he said.

Growling to himself as his anger rose, Strong Bad stormed over to Strong Badia. It was still burning away with that odd cardboard cut-out look, exactly as Trogdor had left it. It was just unfair that Strong Bad's favourite video-game character, after escaping from a cabinet that belonged to him, immediately betrayed him and burned his little country to the ground. On top of Strong Badia's burnination, there was also the issue of his possessed house and missing (or possessed) brothers, The Cheat included. Was this what life was going to be like for him from now on? Where was he going to live? Was Homestar never ever going to leave him alone?

With a great shout, Strong Bad kicked Strong Badia's white fence and instinctively hopped back on one foot from the force... then paused and placed his kicking foot back down normally. "That's weird," he muttered. "It doesn't even sting!" He looked closely at the offending boot for a moment before shrugging and deciding to take advantage of this odd loss of pain; He charged at the fence again and began kicking it furiously.

Taking his frustration out on the flaming fence made Strong Bad feel much better, especially with the bonus that his feet weren't breaking apart from the force behind them or burning up from the nearby flames. There certainly were a few perks to being a videogame character in a puzzle game. Of course, thinking of this only made Strong Bad angrier, and as he apparently couldn't tire in a video game either, he was content to just stand there and repeatedly kick the fence with one leg.

* * *

It was a few minutes before Homestar reappeared to check up on his friend. "Um, Stwong Bad?"

"What?" Strong Bad grunted, not even pausing in his continued tirade against the fence.

Homestar paused for a few more moments before answering timidly "You'we takin' a while solving this puzzle. Awe you okay?"

Strong Bad didn't answer.

"It's just, I thought you might need some help finding-"

"I don't need any help, least of all from you!" Strong Bad shouted, spinning around momentarily before walking further down the fence and resuming his beat-down.

Homestar hung back for several moments. The last time he'd seen Strong Bad so angry was, well, either when Champeen left or his mother... Hmm... Even Homestar didn't think kindly on that particular event, and being so eager to stay Strong Bad's friend, he refrained from mentioning it even in his private thoughts.

There had to be some way to cheer up Strong Bad, Homestar thought. He was clearly in no mood to be going around saving them, and he was the only one capable; every other resident of their little village of Free Country was either possessed or otherwise occupied.

'Hmm,' Homestar reasoned to himself. 'The only times I've seen Stwong Bad this mad were when Champeen left and when that other thing happened, so he must be thinking of one of those two things wight now! And if bad memowies are making Stwong Bad feel bad, maybe weminding him of good memowies will make him feel bettou!' With such thoughts in his mind, Homestar popped his window next to Strong Bad again with a big smile and a loud "Hey, Stwong Bad!"

The wrestleman ignored him.

"I was just thinking of the time when Homeschool and I came to Fwee Countwy! Do you wemembou that?"

No reply.

"That was even back before we started calling each other Homestaw and Stwong Bad! And Champeen was still Julie, and Mawzipan hadn't even awwived yet!"

Strong Bad frowned to himself, and briefly paused in his kicking. "What does that have to do with anything?" he asked.

"Y'know," Homestar continued, his smile fading a bit, "I was weal sad when we moved into our new house, and I just wanted to curl up in my woom and nevou leave, but..." Homestar sighed and gave a somewhat over-the-top sad smile. "Then you and Julie knocked on the door and Petou answered..."

Strong Bad finally stopped kicking the fence, keeping his back to Homestar, and interrupted with "I do know what happened, Homestar." Unseen by the athlete, he gave a small smile in remembrance. "I was there."

* * *

The black-haired six-year-old crossed his arms and smiled cockily. "Heh, 'normally a happy person'?" he repeated. "Yeah, right."

The brown-haired six-year-old, currently hiding behind his adult brother, frowned and finally spoke up, "Wike you can judge; you don't even know me, Fwerty-Peway!"

Black-Hair scowled. "That's not how you say my last name, weirdo! Can't you speak right?"

Brown-Hair's older brother rolled his eyes. "Boys, could you refrain from calling each other names? It's not at all conducive to a good relationship."

The two boys and eight-year-old girl present all looked up at the adult, confused expressions on their faces.

"Um, Mr Runner...?" the girl began.

"Er, just be nice to each other, okay?" The elder corrected himself, placing a hand on his brother's head. "Now, why don't you two show Michael around town while I unpack, huh?" He carefully guided his younger brother out from behind his legs, and nudged him gently in the other children's direction.

"Yeah!" the girl cheered, reaching forward for Michael's hand. "Ben and I can show you around, and I'll keep him from calling you names, okay?"

Ben wrinkled his nose in disgust, but thought better of it and shrugged.

Still unsure, Michael looked up at his guardian for confirmation. "Petou, awen't I s'posed to hewp unpack?"

"Don't worry about it," Peter insisted, leaning down and pushing Michael out the door in slight frustration. "Go make friends."

The girl grabbed Michael's hand with a big grin and waved to Peter, calling "Thank you, Mr Runner! We'll be back before dark!" She and Ben immediately grinned at each other and ran at full pelt away from the house, Ben grabbing Michael's other hand so the pair were dragging him.

"Whoa, g-g-guys!" Michael called, tripping at first but soon easily catching up to the pair of trouble-makers. "What wewe youw fiwst names again? Petou nevou told me!"

The girl giggled. "That's Ben, I already told you that!"

Ben grinned in response, their earlier teasing already forgotten. "Your brother said you were the same age as me! Isn't that cool?"

"And," the girl continued, "my name is Julie!" She smiled widely. "I think we're all gonna be the best of friends!"

The two six-year-old boys couldn't help but smile in agreement as the trio hurtled across the green fields.

* * *

"I don't see what that has to do with anything, though," Strong Bad said, going right back to kicking the fence, although now he was only kicking it relatively lightly with one foot.

Homestar, not noticing this, frowned. Well, _that_ didn't work. What else was a good memory for Strong Bad? He thought for several seconds before a second idea hit him, and he gasped in delight. "Hey, Stwong Bad," he called, popping his window up again. "Remembou that birthday when you first got the FunMachine?"

Strong Bad turned his head slightly in confusion, still refusing to face Homestar. "What about it?"

"Oh, I don't know," Homestar continued, trying to act nonchalant and failing. "You remember it, right? What was the name of that game you got again?"

"Tag Team Wrestling," Strong Bad answered, turning fully to face his old friend. "Anything else you wanted to know?" he asked, deadpan.

* * *

The black-haired eight-year-old threw his brand new FunMachine controller to the ground with a shout of frustration. "I can't believe I lost to those guys AGAIN!" he shouted.

"Calm down, Ben," ten-year-old Julie commented from her place on the bed, feet on the pillow and head resting on her arms. "You'll probably get it with practise." Her disinterest unfortunately showed in her tone; once she had realised that Ben was not going to allow anyone else on his precious new games console for the foreseeable future, she had lain down on his bed, stared at the ceiling and not moved since.

Ben stuck out his lower lip and glared at Julie. He and the other two boys were still dressed up in their superhero costumes, put together especially for the birthday party. Ben was adorned with a newly enlarged mask, baggy track pants, his mother's slippers and his baby blanket tied around his neck for a cape. The mask itself was slightly too big for him and currently resting on the floor, but even without it (and without his shirt) he still looked like the petulant child he was.

Michael, whose eighth birthday was upcoming that November, tugged at his brother's jacket, tied around his neck to act as cape, and said "Maybe we shouwd take a bweak and do something ewse fow a whiwe."

Ben turned to his best friend and cried "Not you too!" Feeling slightly betrayed by his friends, he turned to face his younger brother to ask his opinion, only to find said younger brother curled up and asleep with his stuffed lobster doll on his floor cushion.

"Shaun!" Ben cried in annoyance. "Don't fall asleep, I'm doing cool stuff!"

The six-year-old stirred and lifted his head, one sleepy green eye opening to look around. "Hmmwuh?" he mumbled.

"Leave Shaun alone, we're all bored," Julie called from the bed.

Michael nodded in agreement.

Ben pouted, but finally agreed with his friends. If he had been sending his little brother to sleep, he was prepared to compromise. "Then, does anyone else want to play or something?" he reluctantly asked.

"I do!" shouted Michael, who dove for the controller before Julie could react.

"Huh?" asked Shaun, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "Did you beat the Strong Bads, Ben?"

"The what?" Julie asked, turning her head to face the boys.

"The Stwong Bads," Michael answered, resetting the games console.

The ten-year-old snorted. "That's the stupidest name I've ever heard." She turned back to face the ceiling.

"No, it's not!" Ben shouted, getting from his floor-cushion and walking over to the bed. "Strong Bad is a cool name for them! It's the coolest name ever in the history of anything!"

Julie smirked. "That's exactly what you said last week, and I still don't see you going around asking to be called Cobra."

Ben and Julie stared at each other for several seconds, each silently challenging the other to speak.

"Okay," Ben finally gave in. "I'll start asking to be called Strong Bad, but you have to do the same with a name that you think is the coolest!"

Julie narrowed her eyes. "Deal." She jumped up and spun around to be sitting on the edge of the bed. "Just give me a minute to think of a name..."

"Hey, I want a cool name too!" Michael called, the game controller forgotten in his hands.

"Me too," Shaun quietly added, Gooblies held tightly to his chest.

Ben ran back to his cushion between Shaun and Michael. "Actually, I thought of one a while ago that'd be perfect for you, Michael!"

"Weawwy?" the seven-year-old asked, eyes wide. "Teww me! What is it?"

"Homestar!" Ben admitted, laughing. "Y'know, cuz you and Julie are so good in gym!" He turned to Shaun, adding "You were the one who said it actually, back before Michael moved here."

"I did?" Shaun asked, blinking. As the incident of babyish mispronunciations was over three years ago, he could not recall it, but trusted his brother was telling the truth nonetheless.

"Homestaw..." Michael said to himself, testing the new name out. "Homestaw... Homestaw Wunnou!" He laughed. "Yeah, I wike my new name!"

Shaun tugged on Ben's cape. "What about me?"

Ben rubbed his chin in thought. "Well, I can't think of anything immediately... Maybe we could change Strong Bad up a bit, make a new name out of that?"

"That would be a terrible idea," Julie commented from the bed.

Ben smirked, instantly resolving that it was exactly the way he was going to go.

"Well," he started, "Ben and Bad both start with B, so maybe we could change it to S for Shaun, and then we'd get Strong Sad as your name!" He grinned, feeling accomplished.

Julie snorted. "That's even worse than Strong Bad." She crossed her arms. "You have noticed that 'Strong Sad' basically means Shaun is always gonna be sad, right?"

Shaun looked up at his brother with wide, trembling eyes. "Is that true, Ben?"

The older brother shook his head fiercely. "No way!" He jumped over and hugged his baby brother without hesitation. "I'd never give anyone stupid names that say mean things like that!"

"Then think of another name," Julie muttered.

Ben leaned back on his cushion, ignoring Julie and looking intently at his younger brother. "Y'see, the Strong part of our names means we're big and strong and can beat the bad guys until they run away crying!"

Shaun grinned and nodded.

"And the Sad part of your name," Ben continued, "just means that the bad guys are gonna be sad after they've been beaten by you! See?" He shot a glare at Julie. "Strong Sad isn't a stupid name, is it?"

Shaun nodded. "Yay, I'm Strong Sad!"

Michael tapped his chin in confusion. "Hey Be-, I mean Strong Bad," he asked. "What does the Bad part of your new name mean?"

"That I fight the bad guys!" Ben confidently answered. "And yours means you're really good at gym!"

"I am too," Julie interrupted. "Besides, 'runner' is in his name. Of course he's the fastest sprinter."

"I bet _your_ name doesn't mean something cool like ours," Ben boasted, turning his nose up.

"For your information, it does," Julie responded, getting up off the bed. "My name means I'm the best at everything, so I'd beat you guys any day."

"You'we owdou," Michael pointed out. "You'we hawd to beat anyway."

"What's your new name, then?" Ben asked, eyes narrowed.

"Champeen," Julie said, arms crossed. "My dad used to call me it."

As none of the boys had ever met Julie's father (he had never moved to Free Country with Julie and her mother), they did not bring him up or make fun of the name. There was a line that, even years later when Strong Bad turned against his friends, none of them ever crossed.

"Alright then," Ben said. "We each go by our new names from now on, and the first person to stop loses!"

"And owes the winner a million dollars!" Julie added, plopping to the floor with a grin.

"Wow, I didn't think a miwwion dowwars even existed," Michael thought aloud.

"Yeah!" Ben shouted in agreement with Julie. "You better start saving, Chapman!"

"You're the one who's going to lose, Fuerte-Perez!" Julie retaliated.

Shaun turned to his toy lobster and whispered "Can you steal us a million dollars, Gooblies? I think we might need it for the winner."

* * *

"Not weally," Homestar admitted. "Thewe was a bet involved somewhere, wasn't thewe?"

Strong Bad shrugged. He had more important things to worry about than a childish bet made with former friends, one of whom had moved away since.

It was then he twigged what Homestar was doing. When the two had been friends, Homestar had often said that his brother's cure for sadness was thinking of happy memories. Since the incident that broke the two apart, Homestar had not tried cheering Strong Bad up again (especially after Strong Bad began keeping a baseball bat handy to hit him with), but clearly the circumstances had led him to try again.

"Homestar," the wrestleman asked, looking at the pop-up window curiously. "Why were you trying to cheer me up?"

Homestar blinked, surprised. "Um, no I wasn't," he claimed. "I'm not allowed to do that thing that you said, so I nevou do it and I nevou think of doing it, so I couldn't possibly be doing that thing you said I was doing."

"No, Dumbstar," Strong Bad sighed. "What I meant was, why me?" He looked around the modified town centre. "Surely someone else would be more suited to solving puzzle after puzzle..." He refrained from saying exactly who, loathing to admit that someone was better than him at anything.

Homestar thought for a few moments. "Maybe," he admitted, "but I can't find evewybody! They all seem to be eithou busy, like Bubs, or possessed, like Marzipan and Stwong Mad."

Strong Bad looked down. That was certainly bad news. The two people in Free Country who would beat him at 'adventure' gaming where either busy/possessed or stuck in an annoying pop-up window. He sighed. If he was going to get Free Country back to normal, he had only choice... and he hated even thinking of it.

"Um, Homestar?" he asked.

"Yeah?" the athlete replied.

"Umm..." Strong Bad stalled as long as he felt he could, before taking a breath and finally blurting out "Will you help me?" After a pause, he added "Not that I need it!"

Homestar smiled as the question sunk in, then cheered "Yay! I get to help out!" He proceeded to do a little dance in his pop-up window, chanting "I'm helping out! I'm helping out!"

Strong Bad frowned and growled "Will you just help me already? I'm not getting anywhere on my own."

"Okay!" Homestar chirped cheerily, stopping his dance. "What awe we doing first?"

Strong Bad rubbed his chin in thought. "Well, we need to exorcise my house so we can get into Peasant's Quest and find Rather Dashing, which you told me to do, I might add."

Homestar nodded. "Alwight, alwight." He looked around inside his window for a moment. "Oh look, snakes! And Snake Boxou!" The window disappeared and reappeared over by the Gremlin, Homestar now looking intently at the hood. "Hello snakes! Could you help us out?"

Strong Bad ran over to the broken down car and looked at the snakes. "Are these important?"

"Yep!" Homestar chirped. "You can just take these guys ovou to that cwate you were twying to open earlier, and then Snake Boxou can-"

Strong Bad suddenly cried in shock, and writhed around uncomfortably. Homestar was slightly confused by the interruption, until Strong Bad muttered "Note to self: Best place for keeping a tangle of writhing snakes? NOT my pants."

Homestar blinked a couple of times, noticing that the snakes were now gone from the car hood, before asking "Meet me over at that cwate, okay?" and disappearing.

Strong Bad nodded, wishing he had not put the snakes into his pants without even thinking about it. Just remembering where the two pixelated snakes were made him shiver. "Ergh, I hope I won't need to carry these two for long," he muttered, before heading over to the pile of crates.

* * *

A/N: Changes between this and the original? There were no flashbacks for one. Also, Strong Bad sat down in Strong Badia and just cried for a while. Homestar eventually popped up and tried to cheer him up, then pointed him in the right direction for the puzzle-solving with a to-do list (a scene I thought was quite funny when I wrote it, considering there really was very little they could do) and Strong Bad only needed the hint of the snakes plus Snake Boxer to get it.

I will be adding these end-of-chapter notes from now on whenever there are significant changes, by the way. Only one person has said they've also played the game, so I'm not giving it away for the rest of you!


End file.
